GOODWELL, Okla. – Kansas Wesleyan Softball opened its 2026 campaign on Thursday against the Oklahoma Panhandle State Aggies at Jim Quimby Field.
Playing in their seventh and eighth games of the season, OPSU would sweep the Coyotes 2-1 and 10-6.
Panhandle State took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning after a dropped foul ball error led to the run being scored later in the inning.
The Coyotes tied it in the top of the third as
Brooklyn Lange singled and then scored on
Elli Han's single to left.
The game moved to the seventh where the Coyotes couldn't get a rally going.
Panhandle got a single, a double and then a walk-off single to win the game in the bottom of the inning.
Lange had two of KWU's four hits in the game.
Alli Mickelsen suffered the loss in six and a third innings, allowing two runs on five hits with six strikeouts.
Errors proved costly for the Coyotes in the second game.
The Coyotes took an early 2-0 lead in the first inning of the second game as Lange and Han singled to open the inning and then both scored on
Keira Hammen's double.
A pair of KWU errors in the bottom of the first led to three runs for Panhandle State giving the Aggies a 3-2 lead.
Three more KWU errors in the bottom of the second led to OPSU scoring five runs in the inning and taking an 8-2 lead.
The Coyotes got a run back in the top of the third as Han and
Cadence Mallet singled and Hammen drove in a run with a single.
OPSU got two more runs in the bottom of the third to take a 10-3 lead.
KWU wasn't done as Kendall Wilcox reached on an error in the fourth and then a double by Lange and a 2-run double by Han made it 10-5.
The Coyotes added one more run in the top of the seventh as Lange scored on a wild pitch after leading off the inning with a single.
Lange and Han had three hits each for the Coyotes. Hammen added two and drove in three runs.
Bella Allen took the loss, allowing 10 runs on seven hits, only five runs were earned in three innings.
The teams will meet again on Friday, playing one game starting at Noon.
