Williamsburg, KY - For the second straight game, the #3 UC softball team only needed five innings to finish off the Pikeville Bears. In the team's final regular season home game this year, they won 10-2 to sweep the series. The win is the 14th straight for the Patriots and moves them to 19-0 in conference as well as 40-3 overall. This marks just the second time in program history that a team has amassed 40 wins and is also the second in three years. Under Head Coach Bailey Dillender, UC went 41-16 in 2021.

The success of today's game came in large part to extra base hits. UC blasted eight of their 12 hits as doubles or better. Carly Oliver had one of each, getting a hit in all three of her at-bats, recording a home run, triple, and double. Mackenzie Keatts had a pair of hits, one as a home run and one as a triple. Meryn Livingston recorded a pair of hits, a home run and a double while Mackenzie Pawlak's one hit was a triple. Maddie Sickau joined Oliver, Keatts, and Livingston with all of them recording two RBI. 

In the circle, Talli Burgess picked up her 16th win, remaining undefeated on the season. She went 3.1 innings, giving up just one hit and two runs. She struckout five batters and was throwing a no-hitter into the third inning. Lindsey Shope came in for relief, pitching 1.2 innings. She gave up just one hit in six batters faced to close out the game.

Burgess got going early in the game. In the first inning, she struckout the side, with two going down swinging and one looking. Then the offense immediately got going. Oliver led off the contest for Cumberlands with a triple slotted to left center. Just a batter later, Sickau stroked the ball to the second baseman with such pace it deflected into the outfield allowing Oliver to score. This gave UC the 1-0 lead.

Burgess went back out to work in the second inning, issuing two popouts and a strikeout for a three up, three down frame. Then the offense exploded in the bottom half of the inning. Pawlak roped her triple to right center field to start the offense. Hailey Wood brought her in with a single up the middle. Then Wood stole second to be in scoring position for Livingston. The two then traded places off Livingston's RBI double.  With Taylor Green aboard, Oliver had her second hit, this time a double to right field, scoring Green. Sickau kept her hitting go as well, singling to leftfield, scoring Oliver. For the second triple in the inning, Keatts sent the ball to right field scoring Sickau. A walk to Emily Bryant put runners on the corners and Bryant took off for second. The Bears threw down, trying to catch her stealing. She slid in safely to second and Keatts took advantage, scoring easily to cap the six run inning.

With her team now up 7-0, Burgess went back to the circle and again took care of business. She started the inning with a strikeout and then initiated two groundouts for the quick frame. This prompted another offensive inning for UC. With two outs, Livingston catapulted the ball over the left field fence for her first home run of the season, making it a 8-0 game.

The Bears got their first hit of the game in the fourth and scored two runs. With one out, Shope entered the game and got two outs to limit the damage and keep the score at 8-2.

To lead off the bottom of the fourth inning, Oliver smacked the ball for the second homer of the game. Just two batters later, Keatts hit her team best ninth home run of the season to make it a 10-2 game.

In the fifth with the run-rule in effect, Shope got two lineouts including one she caught and then a groundout for the three up, three down inning. 

The 10-2 victory is the team's 12th run-rule of the season. Cumberlands closes out their regular season at home with a 22-1 record at the UC Softball Complex.

In the series, UC outscored the Bears 21-3 with 32 hits compared to their 10. The Patriots relied on the extra base knocks, racking up 15 compared to just one from their opponent. As a team, UC had a batting average of .457. Nine different batters recorded RBI, led by Oliver with four. She also had five hits, with all of them being for extra bases. Keatts led everyone with six hits and scoring five times. 

In the circle, the pitching staff of Burgess, Shope, Kaiti White and Morgan Radford had a ERA of 1.24 with 14 Ks and just 10 hits against. The Bears batted just .169 across the three games.

UC has just one series left in the regular season and they will head to McKenzie, TN to face Bethel. It is a three game series with the first game slated for a 3PM ET start on Friday, April 28.