Southern Illinois Edwardsville freshman Sammie Ofoia pounded one about 20 feet over the left field fence off Hannah Cravens, widening its lead over Eastern in the top of the fifth.

As she rounded third and a throng of Cougar players awaited her at home plate, a cloud of sand dust polluted the air along the foul line.

After the dust had settled, the Cougars were up 5-0.

The Cougars fortified their lead with eight more runs in the bottom of the fifth, as the Panthers crumbled 13-0 in the second game of a doubleheader, following a 10-3 loss in the first game.

The Cougars have the second-highest ERA in the Ohio Valley Conference, and Eastern’s losing streak is now 11 games.

That Ofoia home run was just the second at bat; 14 more would approach the plate later in the inning.

Head coach Kim Schuette sent in Jenna Robbins for Cravens, but once her substitution gave up two Cougar runs, the coaching staff handed junior McKenna Coffman the ball to finish out the inning.

When Coffman permitted six runs, Schuette brought in freshman Sydney Cammon to, hopefully, bring closure to a frame cluttered with four hits and six walks.

Ofoia came up again eight runs later, belting a ball down the left field line to force Schuette to call in Cammon who, after hitting sophomore Bailley Concatto in the back to put runners on first and second, captured two outs to close it out.

Asked about Ofoia’s superlative hitting performance, Schuette said the Cougar freshmen did not appear to be a force in the batter’s box in game one, but she altered her response concerning her output in game two.

“She hit a bomb that hasn’t landed yet,” Schuette said.

Eastern, which is at the forefront of the Ohio Valley Conference when it comes to errors, had two such mishaps in the second game, almost as much as the number of hits they produced.

The Eastern bats could not grapple with sophomore Bianca Vozenilek, struggling to reawaken itself offensively and get hits, all of which transpired in the first four innings.

“That’s all it takes in this game is all of a sudden you smack the ball pretty well and, all of a sudden, that little ball looks like a beach ball,” Schuette said. “And we need some of our hitters for that little ball to look like a beach ball instead of like a pinball or a golf ball.”

Vozenelik threw five scoreless innings, which capped off Corina Rivas’ trouncing of Eastern through the latter six innings of game one.

Eastern sophomore Megan Burton’s left field single, junior Haley Mitchell’s right field single and a single to center from redshirt sophomore Tayler Wullenweber spawned the sole Eastern runs in game one.

“I would like to see us play better,” Schuette said. “Do I question the effort? Not very often.”

Tom O’Connor can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]