WHITTIER, Calif. – Rhodes softball opens the 2014 season with a pair of tough losses on Friday to Whittier College, 9-0 and 10-9.
 
The Lynx (0-2), playing for the first time in 2014, managed four hits, singles by Erin Parker, Rachel Pewitt, Amber Hunt and Danielle Smith, in the first game against Whittier (2-0). The Poets posted 10 hits, and had a balanced attack with two runs in the first, second and third innings, and three scores in the fourth inning.
 
Rhodes Forrest Skelton started the game in the circle, and gave up 10 hits in four innings pitched. Courtney DeLano earned the win with 4.1 innings in the circle, giving up four hits to the Lynx.
 
In the second match up with the Poets, the Lynx bats found the ball as Rhodes fell in a close contest, 10-9. Chloe Hundman was the Hurler for the Lynx, as she fanned one batter and only gave up nine hits.
 
Rhodes had 11 hits, three off the bat of Allycia Kleine and two from Pewitt. Rhodes opened the first inning with a Pewitt two-run homer, and scored two more runners in the fourth inning when Kleine smacked a home run, and Hunt posted a double to right field to score Parker and Smith.
 
Rhodes posted their final runs in the seventh inning when a Makenzie Martin single scored Christine Hume, Courtney Williams and Jessica Brown and Martin found her way home on the next at bat when Kleine got the RBI off a single to right field.
 
The Lynx will be back in action tomorrow as they wrap up their California trip at Occidental College on Feb. 8 at 2 p.m.