Bates College

Bates sophomore Kelsey Freedman played a big role in both games of the Bobcat softball team's split doubleheader at Maine Maritime Academy on Saturday. The Bobcats (4-4) fell 10-6 in Game 1 of the twinbill but came back to win the second game 7-6 in eight innings.

While Freedman's (Falmouth, Maine) outing in Game 2 wasn't her most effective -- three of the Mariner's six hits were home runs -- she did rack up a career-high 10 strikeouts in the game. That's the most by a Bobcat since at least the 1999 season, and may be a program record (the team's record book doesn't list single-game strikeouts among its standards). After Bates scored the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth inning, Freedman rang up punchout No. 10, in effect saving her own eight-inning, complete-game victory to raise her record this season to 2-1.

Freedman has emerged as one of Bates' top hitting threats thus far as well -- after getting five at-bats in all of last season, she hit in the cleanup position in both games of Saturday's twinbill and delivered in both cases. In the 10-6 Bates loss in Game 1, Freedman, as the Bobcats' designated player, went 2-for-4 at the plate and scored two runs. In the Game 2 win, she again went 2-for-4 and scored one run, raising her batting average this season to .333.