La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse softball team earned a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) doubleheader sweep of UW-River Falls Sunday afternoon at North Campus Field. The Eagles won the opener, 5-1, and the nightcap, 3-2, to improve to 25-11 overall and 9-3 in the WIAC. UW-River Falls drops to 11-20 overall and 3-7 in the conference.

In the opener, UW-River Falls took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first as Lexi Dupee scored on a UWL fielding error. The Eagles came right back in the bottom of the inning to tie the game on Ashley Lindstrom's double scoring Sydney Murphy. UWL took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the third. Brittany Baldwin singled and stole second and then scored on Stephanie Cole's single to make it 2-1. Ally Perdue added a pinch-hit single to knock in Cole later in the inning.

Jenny Gallagher's solo home run in the bottom of the fourth gave UWL a 4-1 advantage and Cole's RBI single scored Brooke Baldwin in the bottom of the sixth finished the scoring. Baldwin had stolen second and third in the inning.

Jessie Carignan (10-3) earned the victory for UWL, her 36th career win. She is now tied for third in career victories with Lori Thompson (1991-94) and Lauren Beres (2011-13). Sally Wenzel (2000-03) is the all-time leader with 49 wins while Heather Schultz (2008-10) is second with 47. Carignan went 5.0 innings Sunday, allowing five hits, one run (unearned) with two strikeouts. Katie Klein picked up her eighth save of the season and 27th in her career.  Klein's 27 career saves is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III record. She went 2.0 innings Sunday, allowing one hit. Klein had a school record 11 saves in 2016 and eight in 2015 (second in single-season school history).

UWL had eight hits in the opener with Cole finishing 3-for-4 with two RBI and one run.

Payton Speckel suffered the loss for UW-River Falls, going 3.0 innings, allowing five hits, four runs and three walks while striking out one. Six different players had a hit for the Falcons.

In the nightcap, UWL took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first as Murphy scored on Cole's RBI double. The Eagles made it 2-0 in the bottom of the second with Brooke Baldwin came in on Murphy's single.  UW-River Falls tied the game in the third with Dupee coming in on Aiyana Ledwein's RBI double and Ledwein scoring the tying run on Ali Krohn's single.

The game remained tied until the bottom of the seventh. Murphy led-off the inning for UWL with a double and was replaced by pinch runner Megan Andes. Brittany Baldwin's sacrifice bunt advanced Andes to third and she then scored the winning run on a UW-River Falls error off the bat of Cole.

Caitlyn Hughes (9-4) earned the complete-game win, pitching 7.0 innings, allowing seven hits, two runs and one walk with six strikeouts. UWL had eight hits with Murphy and Cole each recording two.

Speckel also suffered the loss in the second game, pitching 6.1 innings, allowing eight hits, three runs (two earned) and four walks with two strikeouts. The Falcons had seven hits with Krohn and Maddie Studnicka each finishing with two.

UWL returns to action Saturday, April 29 hosting UW-Stevens Point at 2 p.m. in the Eagles' regular-season finale.