Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Lakeland, Fla. – This afternoon the third ranked Columbia College softball team was back in action when they traveled to Lakeland, Florida, to take on the 15^th ranked Southeastern (Fla.) University Fire in a nonconference doubleheader. The Cougars split the series with the Fire dropping the first game by a final score of 9-8 and winning the second game by a final score of 7-1. With the split, Columbia College improves to 23-4 on the season.

In their first game against the fire, both sides struggled to get anything going offensively to start the game. Columbia College was finally able to get on the scoreboard in the top of the fifth inning when Samantha Myers was able to score on an RBI single from Rachel Sullivan to give the Cougars a 1-0 lead in the ballgame. However, the Fire responded quickly to Columbia's run and rallied for eight runs in the bottom of the fifth to take an 8-1 lead into the sixth. Despite being down big, the Cougars remained resilient and took it to Southeastern over the final two innings. They scored three runs in the top of the sixth and added four runs in the top of the seventh but a single run from the Fire in the bottom of the sixth proved to be the difference in the game. Paxton Welch was in the circle for the Cougars in this one allowing 10 hits and six earned runs in 5.2 innings of work. Offensively, Columbia College was led by Alexandra Linck who went 3-4 with three RBI's and Allyson Metz who went 2-4 with three RBI's.

In their second game against the Fire, the Cougars struggled to get anything going through the first few innings and allowed Southeastern to jump out to an early 1-0 lead in the ballgame. The Fire lead stood through five innings of play but Columbia's bats were able to come alive in the top of the sixth. The Cougars rallied behind a grand slam from Carly Spalding in the inning and scored a total of seven runs to solidify the two game split with Southeastern. Lauren McCroskie was the starting pitcher for Columbia College allowing just five hits and one earned run through seven innings of work. In addition, Carly Spalding went 1-4 with four RBI's and Rachel Sullivan went 2-4 with an RBI to round out the top performers for the Cougars.

Columbia College is back in action tomorrow, March 29^th when they travel to Lake Wales, Florida, to take on Warner (Fla.) University in a nonconference doubleheader. The first game is set to start at 1 p.m. with the second game to follow.