MILWAUKEE, Ill – The Purdue University Northwest softball team split a pair of Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference games Saturday on the road.

The Pride (11-14-1, 1-3 CCAC) fell to the Wolves (13-10) in Game 1, 9-1, before winning Game 2, 8-6.

PNW returns to action Monday, April 3, when the Pride take on conference foe St. Ambrose at Dowling Park in a doubleheader beginning at 3 p.m. CT. 

GAME 1: CARDINAL STRITCH 9, PNW 1 (5 innings)

The Wolves jumped out to a 4-0 lead and never looked back in en route to a big win in Game 1 of Saturday's doubleheader.

Stritch starter Fatime Sino held the Pride to just three hits in the opener, as PNW's Holly Pagan (Bartlett, Ill./Bartlett), Caroline Brown (Minooka, Ill./Minooka Community), and Olivia Sardella (Dyer, Ind./Lake Central) each tallied hits for the visitors.

Down 4-0, PNW tallied its only run in the second inning when Brown, who singled, scored on a Wolves' error.

GAME 2: PNW 8, Stritch 6

Holly Pagan opened Game 2 with a solo home run in the second inning to kick start PNW in the day's second game.

Stritch answered with a two-run double by Karly Lange in the bottom of the inning to give the host a 2-1 lead, but the Pride would answer again with a run in the third on a Taylor Kotzo (Munster, Ind./Munster) RBI triple that scored Olivia Sardella (single), that tied the game at 2-all. Kotzo would later score on a passed ball to make it 3-2 PNW before Stirtch answered again with three runs in the fourth and fifth to take a 5-3 lead.

That's when Kyleigh Payne (Bourbonnais, Illl./Bishop McNamara) blasted her seventh home of the year in the fifth, scoring Kotzo to tie the game at 5-all. Pagan then delivered, belting a solo shot over the fence in the same inning to give the Pride a 6-5 lead.

Kotzo added a two-RBI double in the sixth to make it 8-5 before Stritch scored one in the seventh before Caroline Brown closed the Wolves out for her third win of the year.

Kotzo finished 3-for-5 with three RBI and Pagan was 3-for-3 with two RBI to lead PNW. Senior Hannah Lopez (Granada Hills, Calif./Bishop Alemany) and Sardella added two hits to round out the Pride offensive leaders.

Brown scattered seven hits and struck out three in her complete-game outing.