Melbourne, Fla. -- The 2025 season got underway for the Wheaton softball team on Monday, as the Thunder began their eight-game Spring Break stay in Melbourne, Florida with two nonconference contests. Wheaton fell to Marietta College by a score of 11-2 in the season-opener before topping Fitchburg State University, 10-3, in the second game this afternoon. The Thunder will return to the USSSA Space Coast Complex for another twinbill on Tuesday, with the team set to face Anna Maria College at 12:15 PM (EDT) and Baldwin Wallace University at 2:30 PM local time.
The Marietta Pioneers have won all five games they have played thus far in 2025, and the Ohio side started today's first matchup like a team in form, racking up six runs in the first inning to establish a healthy early lead.
Olivia Nahorniak drove in
Gracey Rockness to put Wheaton on the board in the third frame, but Marietta answered back with five more runs across its next two batting series to all but confirm its victory. The Thunder's second and final score came from
Abie Brown, who rounded the bases by blasting a triple into left field before advancing home on the throw. But the Pioneers prevented the next two batters from getting on base and secured a five-inning win in the first of these teams' two meetings in Florida this week. Wheaton is scheduled to play Marietta again on Thursday afternoon in its final Spring Break contest.
The Pioneers tallied 11 hits to the Thunder's four, and both sides enjoyed a clean game with no errors. Nahorniak posted one hit and one RBI for Wheaton, while Brown earned a hit and a run from her only at-bat. Rockness also reached home plate and stole the only base of the game for the Thunder.
Shylah Dozeman and
Abby Whitehead contributed Wheaton's two other hits in Monday's first game.
Dozeman got the start in the circle for the Thunder this morning and tallied one strikeout, before
Kennedy Kemp made her collegiate debut and sat down two opposition batters in her three innings of work.
Game two of Monday's slate also saw six runs scored in the first inning, but these points were evenly shared between Wheaton and Fitchburg State.
Soleil Weaver secured her first career RBI via a single into center field that scored Nahorniak, before the freshman stole second base and eventually reached home plate herself two batters later.
Paige Andrews was then brought across the pentagon by another rookie,
Cate Welch, who posted a RBI single of her own to make it 3-0 in the Thunder's favor. But the Falcons responded with three runs of their own from only two hits in the bottom half to tie the score back up. Wheaton did well to limit the damage and stranded two Fitchburg baserunners to prevent their Massachusetts opponent from moving into the lead.
Three scoreless innings followed the exciting first frame, and it appeared as though the game would be going down to the wire with no clear indication of which side would emerge on top. But the Thunder exploded for seven runs in the last three innings to secure what eventually proved to be a lopsided first win of the campaign.
Megan Mosier came in as a pinch runner in the top of the fifth and scored the go-ahead run thanks to a RBI triple from Whitehead. The Falcons got a runner on third base in the bottom of the frame following consecutive wild pitches, but a throw home stopped her from tying the score at 4-4, and Wheaton saw out the inning with a fly-out and ground-out combo. The Thunder then took a big step towards victory with a four-run sixth inning to create permanent separation on the scoreboard. Wheaton managed to load the bases, and this allowed Brown's sacrifice fly to bring Welch in to score. But the Falcons then made a costly throwing error on the play that also gave Kemp and
Abigail Latka the chance to reach home plate. The victors put runners on all three bags again soon after this, and Nahorniak scored off of a bases-loaded walk to set the score at 8-3 in Wheaton's favor. Fitchburg State could not come up with any hits in the last two innings due to the Thunder's effective defensive play, and a pair of RBI triples that scored Kemp and Nahorniak accounted for Wheaton's final two runs of a successful second outing on Monday.
The Thunder scored ten runs from ten hits in the second game today while committing a single error, compared to the Falcons' tally of just two hits and the same number of errors.
Victoria Barbar was the starting pitcher for Wheaton in game two on Monday and earned the win with her four innings in the circle, tallying one strikeout and allowing just two hits from the 19 batters she faced. Dozeman came in for 2.2 innings of relief work and did not concede any hits while walking just one of the nine Fitchburg players she pitched to.
Nahorniak was the offensive standout for the Thunder in their win this afternoon, going 3-4 at the plate with a RBI and three runs scored. The first-year duo of Weaver and Welch also had strong showings, with both players posting 2-3 marks at the plate and scoring once, while the former had two RBI and the latter earned one. Whitehead contributed one hit with two runs batted in, and Kemp posted one hit and scored twice. Andrews chipped in with one hit and one run in the victory.
