MT. CARMEL, Ill. -- The Wabash Valley softball team rallied to knock off 18th-ranked Lake Land, 7-6, in the first half of the NJCAA Game of the Week doubleheader on Sunday at Paul Schnarre Field. The game was streamed live by ESPN+. 

Wabash Valley trailed 6-1 entering the bottom of the fifth inning. The Lady Warriors scored three runs to close the gap to 6-4, then added three more in the sixth to take their first lead, at 7-6.  

But the game was far from over. 

In the top of the seventh inning, Lake Land had runners on second and third with only one out. Kinsly Heichelbech handled a fly ball to center field for the second out. Then, as the Laker runner at third tagged and tried to score, Heichelbech fired a strike to catcher Abby Schreiner to complete a game-saving and game-ending double play. 

The Lady Warriors, trailing early 5-0, got on the scoreboard in the fourth inning. Jayley Akers hit a solo home run, her third of the year, to left field. Akers, now tied with Abbi Mocaby and Taylor Wilke for the club lead in homers, also tops the team in RBIs with 23. 

After Lake Land added a run in the top of the fifth to get its' five-run lead back, WVC went to work on offense. In the home half, Heichelbech got the first of three runs home when she reached on an infield error. Mocaby added a 2-run single to make it 6-4. 

Then in the bottom of the sixth, Schreiner lashed an RBI single to left to make it 6-5. The tying and go-ahead runs scored when Gracee Sullivan hit a ground ball that was mishandled on the infield. That made it 7-6. 

The Warriors made the most of the six hits they had in the opener. Akers had two of them. 

Demi Wolfe started in the circle for Jade Montgomery's team and worked the first four innings. Kyrsten White came on in the fifth and got the win. 

In the second game, Lake Land (27-9, 15-3 in Great Rivers Athletic Conference) prevailed, 16-1, to earn a split on the day. Wabash Valley (9-21, 4-7) mustered only two hits in the game, and scored its' lone run in the fifth on a solo home run by Wilke. 

 The Lady Warriors have back-to-back home GRAC doubleheaders this week. Thursday, they host John A. Logan at 2 p.m. CDT, followed by a Friday twinbill against Rend Lake (12 noon).