BROOKINGS, S.D. - Lizzie Noble was 4-for-5 with six RBI and came up a double shy of the cycle, pacing the Omaha softball team to a 12-4 win over South Dakota State on Saturday.
With the win, the Mavericks swept their first Summit League series of the season and improved to 26-15 overall and 7-5 in league play. The Jackrabbits dropped to 7-29 overall and 2-13 in the league.
Noble, a true freshman, capped an impressive weekend in Brookings with a two-run triple in the first, a two-run homer in the fourth and a two-run single in the fifth. In the three-game series, she was 8-for-13 (.615) with 11 RBI, five runs, two homers, one triple and five singles.
But the Mavericks got plenty of production up and down the lineup, as UNO matched its season high with 15 hits. Allie Mathewson was 2-for-5 with a run, Amber Lutmer was 2-for-3 with two walks and three runs, and Campbell Ditto was 1-for-2 with an RBI and two runs. Tonya Peterson was 1-for-5 with a two-run single, Mara Eeman was 2-for-3 with a run, and Lia Mancuso and Sydney Hames each had hits. Bailey Schulenberg came off the bench to deliver a pinch-hit two-run double in the seventh for the final two runs of the game.
Omaha led 2-0 after the top of the first on Noble's triple, but the Jacks cut it to 2-1 in the first on a balk by Dana Elsasser. The Mavs' senior pitcher threw a complete game to move to 21-7 this season. She allowed four runs on eight hits, two walks and eight strikeouts.
UNO used a three-run third inning to go up 5-1. Peterson singled home Noble and Eeman for a 4-1 lead, and Mancuso's grounder to third scored Peterson. But SDSU came back with three runs of its own in the bottom half to make it 5-4. Elsasser shut the door after that, giving up no hits in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.
Three runs in the fourth and two in the fifth gave UNO plenty of separation with a 10-4 lead. Ditto's RBI double to score Megan Stegman, followed by Noble's homer made it 8-4. Noble delivered a single in the fifth to score Mathewson and Lutmer for the 10-4 margin, before Schulenberg put the icing on the cake with her second RBI pinch-hit of the series.
The Mavericks are back at home on Tuesday to face North Dakota in a non-conference doubleheader at 2 p.m.
