ST. CLOUD, Minn. – The Southwest Minnesota State softball team returned to the diamond on Saturday night opening its 2021 season with a pair of victories at the St. Cloud State Kelly Laas Memorial Tournament inside the SCSU Dome. SMSU opened the night with an 8-4 win over Northwestern College (IA) and then cruised past Viterbo (Wis.), 15-1, in five innings.
 
SMSU will have a quick turnaround and resume play on Sunday morning with a doubleheader versus Truman State (Mo.) (2-2) starting at 9 a.m.
 
In the opener versus Northwestern, SMSU was able to take advantage to several Red Raider miscues to score five unearned runs.
 
NWC scored the game's first run in the second inning and held a 1-0 lead until the fourth. Held to just one hit through three innings, SMSU's bats came alive in the fourth as Emma Grote reached on an error and moments later Kali Tomlinson belted a two-run homer to put SMSU in the lead. With one out, Lileya Kebos tripled and then scored on a sac fly by Madison Krog to make the score 3-1.
 
SMSU added to the lead in the fifth with three runs on just one hit and taking advantage of three NWC errors to push the lead to 6-1.
 
The Mustangs added a single run in the sixth on a Grote RBI ground out and then pushed across another run in the seventh on a Krog sac fly to score Kebos, who tripled for the second time in the game.
 
SMSU starting pitcher Allison Christians fired the first 5 1/3 innings and allowed three runs (two earned) on nine hits. She struck out four and walked a pair. Megan Cull entered the game in the bottom of the sixth with one out and the bases loaded with SMSU holding a 7-2 lead and stopped the rally with a pair of ground outs. Cull gave up a solo homer and left the bases loaded in the seventh to secure the win.
 
Kebos and Tomlinson led SMSU's eight-hit attack with two hits each, while Krog, Tomlinson and Grote each finished the game with two RBIs.
 
In the nightcap versus Viterbo, it was all SMSU as the Mustangs jumped on the board with five first inning runs and cruised to the run-rule victory.
 
Bailey Johnson had a big night finishing 4 for 4 with three doubles, four RBIs and four runs scored. The three doubles tie her own SMSU single-game record along with three other players. Grote finished 3 for 4 with two RBIs and two runs scored, Tomlinson had two hits and three RBIs, Kebos collected two hits (including another triple), while Krog collected a pair of RBIs.
 
Shelby Bloemendaal picked up the victory in the circle for the Mustangs tossing all five innings and allowing five hits with three strikeouts.