NORFOLK, Va. – After a victory over Morehead State, the Norfolk State softball team almost made it 2-for-2 on Saturday afternoon at the NSU Softball Field. Marshall, however, rallied with six runs in the seventh as the Spartans split a pair of games in the Hampton Classic.
 
They won the first game over the Eagles by a 10-6 margin and then lost their second game of the day to the Thundering Herd by that same score. The Spartans finished with 20 hits over the course of those two games, including six extra-base hits among their 13 hits in the win over Morehead State.
 
NSU ran its record to 5-7 on the year after also winning a pair of games on Friday during the first day of the tournament run by Hampton. A week after struggling on offense, the Spartans got their bats going on Saturday.
 
Junior Jazzmaine Hammond had a big game against Morehead State (3-7). She batted 3-for-3 with two runs and four RBI, one of four players with at least two hits in the game for NSU.
 
MSU tallied a run in the first, but the Spartans responded with their first of three innings in which they scored exactly three runs. Hammond got the bottom of the first started with a two-run homer to left to score senior Shelby DesChamps. Sophomore Gabby Vaughan hit a solo homer later in the inning for a 3-1 edge.
 
Junior Jade Dixon hit an RBI single in the second, and NSU made it 7-1 with three more runs in the third. Vaughan singled in Hammond for the first run of the inning, and junior Tuli Iosefa and sophomore Brooke Bond had RBI hits for a six-run edge.
 
But the Eagles were not done. They scored three runs in the top of the fourth, all unearned, and another in the fifth to cut NSU's lead to 7-5. But an inning later, NSU responded for good. Freshman Raven Blair hit a solo homer to start a three-run rally in the sixth. Two more singles were followed by Hammond's two-run double to left field for a 10-5 lead.
 
MSU threatened with another run in the seventh, but the Eagles left the bases loaded to end the game.
 
Freshman Alexis Robinson improved to 2-1 on the year after allowing five runs, just one earned, in 5.2 innings of work. Vaughan hit 2-for-3 with two runs and two RBI, and DesChamps and Iosefa each had two hits and two runs as well.
 
Marshall (12-5) piled up 15 hits against the Spartans in the last game of the day, but the Thundering Herd only scored four runs on 10 hits through the first six innings.
 
They began the game with a two-run home run from the second batter of the inning, Sierra Huerta. Freshman Loren Hudson got a run back for NSU with an RBI double in the second, and the Spartans followed that up with four runs in the third.
 
NSU had runners on first and third with two outs, and Blair hit an infield single for the first run of the inning. An error scored the second run, and another error on a dropped pop up plated another two runs for a 5-2 edge.
 
Marshall got two runs back in the fourth, but the Spartans extended their lead to 6-4 on Iosefa's RBI hit in the fifth.
 
But it all came undone in the seventh. Two walks were followed by a three-run home run from Mya Stevenson. Rachel Rousseau followed with a solo homer to center, and two more runners eventually scored as Marshall sent 11 batters to the plate in the inning.
 
Iosefa had two of the team's seven hits.
 
Marshall's Laney Jones moved to 7-1 on the year despite allowing seven hits and six runs, three earned, with eight strikeouts in six innings of work.
 
NSU will play Marshall again on Sunday at noon to finish out the tournament.