EAST PEORIA, Ill. – The No. 12 UIndy softball team (44-12) recorded a pair of victories on day one of the 2019 GLVC Championship Tournament Friday. The second-seeded Greyhounds dispatched of seventh-seeded Drury, 5-3, before downing No. 6-seed Truman by a score of 10-3. The eight-team, double-elimination event is being held at the EastSide Centre in East Peoria, Ill.
 
UIndy 5, Drury 3
The Greyhound offense racked up 15 hits against the Panthers in the opener, good for its second-highest total on the season. Five knocks came in a big third-inning rally, with Haylie Foster providing the spark with a leadoff home run – just her second long ball of the season and third of her career.
 
Three more runs followed in the frame; Brooke Montgomery roped an RBI double to right center, and later scored all the way from second base on an infield single by Sydnie Foster.
 
Pitcher Halie Waters, fresh off an All-GLVC First Team nod, was unhittable through four innings. The Panthers finally got on the board with a three-spot in the sixth, but it wasn't enough as Waters went on to fan eight batters and up her league-winning win total to 22.
 
Gianni Iannantone finished 3-for-4 with a run scored, while Taylor Danielson, Shannon Schuetz, Montgomery and Sydnie Foster each had two base hits apiece.
 
UIndy 10, Truman 3
After the Bulldogs allowed zero runs in their preceding win versus No. 22 Southern Indiana, the Greyhounds jumped on them early with three runs in the first and two more in the second. An error and two walks fueled the first-inning surge, while senior Taylor Podschweit delivered a two-run blast in the second.
 
Truman got three back in the third inning, but that proved to be the whole of their output. Junior pitcher Lauren Honkomp (20-4) was sharp otherwise, allowing just five hits on the day to earn the complete-game win. She joined teammate Waters as a 20-game winner on the year, becoming the first tandem of Hounds to hit the milestone since 2013.
 
UIndy hung two more runs on the board in the fifth and put the game away with three in the seventh. Sydnie Foster notched an RBI in each inning, while senior Rachel Vander Wagen managed a pinch-hit, two-run single in the seventh. Fellow-senior Brooke Riess also came off the bench in the seventh to record a hit.
 
UP NEXT
The Greyhounds will enter day two as one of just two teams left in the winners' bracket. UIndy takes on top-seeded Missouri-St Louis Saturday at 2 p.m. ET. The winner will move on Sunday's conference final, while the loser will need win two consecutive elimination games in the losers' bracket Saturday to join them.