GRANVILLE, Ohio (March 9, 2023) – The Denison University softball team hosted its first two home games of the 2023 season on Thursday at the Denison softball field and finished the day with a pair of one-run wins against Franklin College. The Big Red held on for a 2-1 win in game one before pulling out a 1-0 win in game number two.
 
Game 1 (Denison 2, Franklin 1):

• Denison scored first with a two-out rally in the bottom of the first inning that saw back-to-back singles up the middle by Indy Workman and Annabelle Calderon before a bloop single to right field by Alessandra Groome to score Workman from second base.
• Then in the bottom of the third inning, Jacqui Abogado led off with a single up the middle, moved up to second on a walk by Workman, advanced to third on a groundout by Calderon and scored on a sacrifice fly to Groome to make it 2-0 Big Red.
• Denison's starting pitcher, Brooke Surbaugh (3-0), faced the minimum through three innings before a leadoff double in the top of the fourth inning. Then with one out and a runner on third base, Surbaugh got a popup to second base followed by a swinging strikeout to keep the Grizzlies off the scoreboard.
• Unfortunately, an error with two outs in the top of the fifth inning allowed Franklin to get on the board with an unearned run before Surbaugh got a flyout to a running Groome in left field to leave the bases loaded and preserve the one-run lead.
• Surbaugh then got all three outs in the sixth inning to Workman at shortstop, and then in the top of the seventh inning, the Grizzlies got the tying run to second base with two outs before the game ending flyout to Clara Wolff in right field.
• Groome was responsible for bringing in both of Denison's runs at the plate while Surbaugh allowed four hits and three walks and pitched her second complete game in her first four collegiate starts.

 
Game 2 (Denison 1, Franklin 0):

• The top of the first inning ended with a diving catch in center field by Brianna Gonzalez, and then the top of the second inning featured a nice double play by Workman at short before another nice running catch in left field by Groome.
• Denison kept its strong defensive effort going as Calderon threw out a runner trying to steal second base to end the top of the third inning, and then a 1-2-3 top of the fourth inning ended with back-to-back groundouts to Abogado at third base.
• Then with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning, Wolff came up huge and launched a solo home run to left field for the only run of the game.
• In the top of the sixth inning and still clinging to a one-run lead, Sydney Silverstein (3-1) issued back-to-back walks to put the tying-run into scoring position. Fortunately, after a strikeout for out number two, the Grizzlies tied to send the tying-run home from second base on a single to center field, but a laser to home plate by Gonzalez stopped the runner in her tracks, and then Calderon ran her down trying to retreat to third base.
• Lastly, in the seventh inning, Gonzalez made another catch on a full sprint into the gap from center field for out number two before a flyout to Groome in left wrapped up the three-hit shutout for Silverstein. It was also the second complete game in three starts this season for Silverstein.

 
Records:

• With the two wins, Denison improves to 6-2 on the season while Franklin falls to 9-3 after playing its first two road games of the season.

 
Next Up: Now that their trip to the SU Softball Classic (Mar. 11-12), hosted by Shenandoah University, has been canceled, the Big Red will turn their attention to home doubleheaders against Otterbein University (Mar. 16) and Allegheny College (Mar. 18) next week.