LAS VEGAS – On a day that saw senior
Erika Hansen rewrite the record books, the Nevada softball team kept its season alive on Thursday with a pair of wins over Utah Valley and Weber State. Hansen launched a home run in each contest to set a program record 15 home runs in one season as she helped lead the Wolf Pack (27-26) to a 7-5 victory over the Wolverines (21-31) and a 7-5 win over the Wildcats (28-26).
In total, Hansen finished the afternoon with two home runs and five RBIs to push her team lead to 56 runs batted in on the season. She is now five RBIs away from tying the program single-season record, which is a standard that she set last season.
The Pack's game against the Wolverines also saw sophomores
Kwynn Warner and
Haley Burda join Hansen as those who drove in multiple runs in the contest. Against the Wildcats, junior
Alyssa Mendez smashed Nevada's second home run of the contest, as her two-run shot in the top of the seventh put the Pack ahead by three.
After senior
Aaliyah Gibson became Nevada's first base runner of the day, Hansen stepped up to the plate and sent a towering fly ball over the fence on the first pitch she saw to quickly put the Pack ahead of Utah Valley, 2-0. The home run marked her 14
th home run of the season, which became a program single-season record.
Following a two-run top of the third from the Wolverines that tied the score, the Wolf Pack wasted no time on getting those runs back as a four-run, five-hit bottom of the inning put Nevada back out in front. With two outs in the final half of the fourth, sophomore
Jyllian Ahart sent a ball right up the middle to put runners on every base for Warner whose single scored both Hansen and sophomore
Kenzi Goins.
The two-out rally continued as sophomore
Haley Burda brought around another pair of runs, courtesy of her base-knock to left field that put the Pack ahead, 6-2. After the two teams traded runs in the fourth, Nevada entered the seventh with a four-run cushion and Utah Valley did its best to comeback, having cut the Wolf Pack lead in half but Nevada held on and sealed the 7-5 victory to advance to the next round.
In what started as a pitcher's dual against Weber State, Nevada broke through in the top of the third with another big, four-run inning. After Gibson got things going with a single through the right side that allowed freshman
Lauren Gutierrez to score, the Pack had two runners on for Hansen, who stepped up to the plated and connected on a three-run bomb that put the Pack ahead by four.
Weber State responded quickly though, plating four runs of its own in the bottom of the inning to tie the score, as the Pack moved to the fourth all knotted up. Burda then led the inning off with a single to the left field gap and after McAlister's single to center, Nevada was back ahead, 5-4.
Mendez then put up two huge insurance runs in the top of the seventh, as her two-run homer extended Nevada's lead to three, which proved to be the difference in the game as the Wolf Pack edged out the Wildcats, 7-5. The Wolf Pack will now wait to who it will face in the next round of the Postseason NISC, as Nevada will square up against the loser between UC Riverside and UNLV on Friday at noon.
