St. Joseph, Mo. - The Missouri Southern Lions (14-17, 3-5  MIAA) split their opening pair of games in the Apple Market Classic hosted by Missouri Western on Friday.

Game One
Southern got the game started with a back-to-back walks to senior Alana Hester and sophomore Abi Corbett. Junior Sydney Fry then sent a three run bomb over the right field fence to give the Lions the early 3-0 lead. A sacrifice fly from Northern State's Macey Engel cut the Lions' lead down to 3-1 in the bottom of the inning before senior Sarah Williams led off the second inning with a solo shot to left field to make it 4-1. NSU's Kelsey Gale came up with a RBI single to center to cut the lead to 4-2 in the fifth before the Wolves loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh with two outs. Engel singled to left field to score Lauren Kunz to make it 4-3 and Gale got caught in a run-down trying to tie the game and was tagged out by senior Ashley Lutz to preserve the 4-3 win.

Lutz tossed the complete game allowing three runs, two earned, on five hits with five walks and struck out five. Five Lions went 1-for-3 at the plate highlighted by the three run home run from Fry and the solo shot from Williams.

Game Two
The second game of the day started out as a pitchers duel between Williams and Minnesota State-Mankato's Libby Bemis. MSU broke through in the fourth inning off an RBI single to center by catcher Kara Lattery. The Lions answered back in the top of the fifth with a solo home run to left field by sophomore Myranda Stewart. However, the bottom of the fifth saw the Mavericks take advantage of three errors to score eight unearned runs for the 9-1 run rule victory.

Williams started inside the circle for the first time since the 2015 season and went 4.1 innings allowing six runs, one earned, on six hits with one strike out. Freshman Taurean Guzman pitched one third of an inning in relief allowing three runs, two earned, on three hits with a walk.

Up Next
The Lions will take on University of Mary out of Bismark, N.D. tomorrow at 10 a.m. and Augustana (S.D.) at 2 p.m. at Heritage Park.