After suffering a 12-0 loss in five innings to No. 8 Paris on the road Wednesday afternoon, the 16th-ranked Cardinals fought back in the second game and pulled out a 10-6 win in nine innings.
The split left the Cardinals 31-11 on the season. They are 10-2 in Region XIV Conference and tied atop the standings with Paris and Bossier Parish with 10-2 marks. Paris is 33-7 overall.
The Cardinals are scheduled to return to action Saturday at home against Tyler. Doubleheader action at Drumgoole Field at Cain Park is set to start at 1 p.m.
Paris held the heavy-hitting Cardinals to two hits in the first game. Such was not the case in the second, as the Cardinals returned to their ball assaulting ways with 17 hits.
Included among the Cardinals' plate explosion were a pair of dramatic home runs. In the top of the seventh, after Addison Wittram had doubled, Kiara Wiedenhaput crushed a two-run home to send the game into extra innings. In the top of the ninth, Karli Glaze stroked a pinch-hit home run for a three-spot. The Cardinals tacked on another run and that proved all she wrote.
Wittram went 4-for-6 and scored twice to lead the hit total. Ashlyn Weinert and Wiedenhaupt had three hits each and Glaze two.
The stat line for Widenhaput read 3-for-4 with three RBI, three runs scored, the home run and two doubles.
Weinert also had a home run.
Nicole Stuhr pitched the final two innings in relief of Mikayla Marrujo to get the win in the circle. Stuhr did not allow a hit.
The Cardinals and Paris are scheduled to meet in a rematch doubleheader Saturday, April 27 in Athens.
