What's In A Name?

CLERMONT, Fla. (2/17/18)---In her freshman season in 2017 Elizabeth Asp went by Betsy and had 16 hits, two extra-base hits and nine RBI the entire year. In 2018 she decided to use her full first name and the change has paid huge dividends.

On Tuesday Elizabeth Asp went 7-for-7 to help Concordia sweep their two games in Florida and improve to 3-3 on the season.  Asp now has nine hits in the team's first six games. She has also collected three extra-base knocks and has already driven in eight runs. And oh yeah, she is also hitting a team-best .474.

Asp went 3-for-3 with a triple in the Cobbers' 5-0 win over Houghton (N.Y.) in the opener and then backed that up with a 4-for-4 gem against Johnson State (Vt.) as Concordia rolled to a 17-5 win in five innings of play.

Asp has now hit safely in the last four games for CC and is hitting .692 during that stretch.

While Asp has been seeing beach balls at the plate for Concordia, freshman pitcher Megan Gavin found the aspirin bottle in her second collegiate start and fired pills all game long against Houghton. Gavin struck out 10 and only gave up three hits to record her first collegiate shutout and first collegiate victory.

The biggest jam for Gavin came in the second inning when the Highlanders loaded the bases with no outs. Gavin then reached back and produced two strikeouts and got the third batter to ground out weakly back to the pitcher's circle.

At one time Gavin had retired 11 straight batters until she gave up a two-out single in the fifth inning. She finished the game by retiring four straight hitters including a 1-2-3 seventh inning.

Concordia struck for all five runs in the third inning. The Cobbers sent nine batters to the plate in the decisive frame and came away with five hits. CC got single-RBI hits from Riley Bergstrom, Kayla Nack, Asp and Nicole Johannes.

The second game was all about the offense as the Cobbers scored at least three runs in each of the first four innings and bolted to a 17-2 lead.

Concordia had a season-high 18 hits in the game and had at least three hits in four of the five innings of play.

Asp led the hit parade with her 4-for-4 game. She was one of five CC players with at least two hits.

Freshman Riley Irman went 2-for-5 from the leadoff spot and scored three runs. Nack followed Irman in the batting order and went 2-for-2 and scored a run.

Madi Veith was 3-for-3 and drove in a pair of runs with a double while Brooke Swarthout went 2-for-4 and also had two RBI.   

Senior Abby Haraldson went the first four innings in the circle and allowed two earned runs on six hits and struck out four.

Kelly Riordan finished off the five-inning game by throwing the final frame.

SHUTOUT FEVER: Concordia's 5-0 shutout in the opener against Houghton marked the first time that the Cobbers had blanked a team since Mar. 16, 2016 when they blanked Bethany Lutheran 13-0.
 
A GREAT EIGHT: Elizabeth Asp has now had a hit in eight straight official plate appearances. She had a three-run double in the fifth inning in the second game on Monday. Asp was then hit by a pitch in her final at-bat in the seventh inning before rattling off her 7-for-7 hit video on Tuesday.

A TERRIFIC 10: Freshman pitcher Megan Gavin fanned 10 batters against Houghton. The last time a Cobber pitcher struck out 10 batters in a game was the sixth game of last year when Abby Haraldson struck out 11 in a 6-0 loss to Rose-Hulman.

WHAT'S NEXT: Concordia will have their lone day off of the spring trip on Wednesday before returning to action on Thursday, Mar. 1 when they play Rose-Hulman and Augustana.