WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue softball team took a new meaning to playing two during its Saturday doubleheader against Iowa. The Boilermakers split the two games and recording a combined 19 total innings, registering eight runs on 21 hits, while the pitching staff fanned 12 batters.
Purdue (5-10) nearly rallied from a five-run deficit but fell the Hawkeyes (9-6) 5-3 in the opener, before Kiley Goff ended game two with a walkoff single in the bottom of the 12th to lift the Boilermakers to a 5-4 win.
GAME 1
Both clubs' pitching staffs kept hitters off balance through the early and middle innings of the opener.
Purdue's hurlers stymied the Hawkeyes hitters, save for the second inning. Iowa plated a trio of runs on six hits in the frame. Alex Echazarreta was saddled with the loss after 1 2/3 innings with three earned runs allowed.
Savanah Henley took over with one out in the second and rolled in the circle. The southpaw fanned five over her 5 1/3 innings of work, giving up just a trio of hits and two runs, one earned. Henley's only blip came in the fifth when a pair of runs scored on the same play from a sacrifice fly and a throwing error.
Iowa righty Allison Doocy went the distance to pick up the win. She worked around six hits and two walks to strike out 13 batters. Ryleigh Scott was the lone Boilermaker to record a base hit until the fifth inning.
Purdue got on the board in the fifth. Back-to-back singles from Scott and Rachel Becker set the stage for a three-run Cora Bassett home run to center field to pull the Boilermakers back within two. Purdue brough the tying run to the plate in both the sixth and seventh innings, but Doocy closed the door on any comeback opportunity.
Purdue – 3, Iowa – 5
Winning pitcher: Allison Doocy (3-3)
Losing pitcher: Alex Echazarreta (0-2)
NOTES
• Kiley Goff threw out her fourth runner trying to steal this season, with a perfect throwdown in the first inning.
• Ryleigh Scott went 2-for-4 and scored a run in just her second game of the year.
• Savanah Henley matched her career high with five punchouts.
• After just one home run in the opening 12 games, Purdue went yard in back-to-back outings.
GAME 2
The nightcap nearly stretched into two full games, despite just two runs scored in the opening six frames. Purdue saw a 2-0 lead evaporate in the seventh when Iowa pushed the game to extra innings. After three quiet innings, Purdue twice rallied from a run down, before Kiley Goff sealed the win in the bottom of the 12th.
The 12-inning contest is tied for the second longest in program history, behind a 16-inning 4-3 win on April 29, 2000, at Minnesota.
The Boilermakers struck early when Rylee Platusic drove in Ryleigh Scott on a two-out, RBI single to center field in the first. Cora Bassett hit a first-pitch infield single to score Becca Jones in the fifth to add to the lead.
For six innings, that run support was more than enough for Purdue starting pitcher Sydney Bates. The redshirt senior worked around a base runner in each of the first five innings, but a leadoff home run in the top of the seventh spelled the end of her afternoon. Baters finished with 6 1/3 innings of action with three strikeouts, five hits allowed and two earned runs. She fired 67 strikes on 100 pitches.
As Iowa tied the game at 2-2 in the seventh, Ashley Peters came on in relief, nearly throwing a full game. The Rock Island, Ill., native shrugged off six hits, did not allow an earned run and punched out four batters in her 5 2/3 innings, putting 55 of her 67 pitches in the strike zone.
Iowa plated runners in the 11th and 12th, thanks to the international tiebreaker rule of starting each inning after the 10th with a runner on second. Alex Echazarreta nearly walked off in the 11th with a pounding RBI double off the wall in left, but the tie kept the game alive into the 12th.
With the bases loaded and no outs, Bassett leveled the score at 4-4 on a single through the left side. Two batters later, Goff ended the game with a single to deep left field on a full count, bringing Scott in as the winning run.
Purdue – 5, Iowa – 4
Winning pitcher: Ashley Peters (3-2)
Losing pitcher: Sarah Lehman (5-2)
Top hitters: Ryleigh Scott (3-5, 2 R), Cora Bassett (-5, 2 RBI, 1 BB), Alex Echazarreta (3-5, 1 RBI)
Top pitchers: Sydney Bates (6.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K), Ashley Peters (5.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 4 K)
NOTES
• Echazarreta tallied a career high with three hits, while knocking her first two extra-base hits of the year.
• Scott matched her career-high three hits from March 13, 2019, against Saint Joseph's.
• After Iowa pitchers struck out 13 in the opener, Purdue went down on strikes just three times in the nightcap.
• Bates had a three-hit shutout going into the seventh.
• Kiara Dillon's stolen base in the sixth made Purdue 10-for-10 on the season when stealing.
UP NEXT
The Boilermakers will close out their first home series since 2019 with a 1 p.m. finale Sunday afternoon.