Fresno State rallies to beat UNLV, complete softball series sweep

Miranda Rohleder delivered a two-out, two-run, game-tying double in the top of the seventh inning and eventually scored the go-ahead run on Morgan Howe’s single as Fresno State defeated UNLV 4-3 on Sunday to complete a three-game Mountain West softball series sweep.

With the Bulldogs (29-20, 9-8) down 3-1 entering the seventh, Vanessa Hernandez led off with a double. Dominique Jackson drew a one-out walk and, after Malia Rivers popped up to the catcher for the second out, Rohleder doubled to right. Howe then singled to right to put Fresno State ahead.

Kamalani Dung worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the bottom of the seventh to improve to 20-12.

Fresno State also received a solo home run from Savannah McHellon in the fourth inning.

On Saturday, Dung pitched a two-hit shutout and Fresno State broke through for three runs in the top of the seventh to beat UNLV 3-0.

Dung walked one and struck out two while tossing her conference-best seventh shutout.

Kinda Hackbarth – running for McHellon, who had singled – broke open a scoreless game, scoring when Kierra Willis’ sacrifice was played for an error. Hernandez followed with an RBI double and Jackson added a run-scoring single.

Rohleder and Howe had consecutive run-scoring singles in the top of the ninth inning, and Dung worked a 1-2-3 bottom half as Fresno State opened the series Friday with a 6-4 win.

The Bulldogs forced a 2-2 tie in the sixth on Lindsey Willmom’s two-run home run.

Fresno State, which has been eliminated from MW title contention, hosts New Mexico State for a three-game series May 5-7 at Margie Wright Diamond.

Men’s tennis – Second-seeded Fresno State lost third-set tiebreakers at Nos. 2-3 singles during a season-ending 4-3 loss to No. 3 UNLV on Saturday during the semifinals of the Mountain West Championships.

The Bulldogs (18-13) captured the doubles point behind wins from the No. 2 team of Xander Veys-Mantas Bugailiskis and No. 3 Youssef Hassan-Zdenek Derkas.

Fresno State then won the first two completed singles matches, with Bugailiskis beating Evaldo Neto 6-3, 6-3 at No. 4 and Veys topping Jakob Amilon 6-4, 6-1 at No. 1, but the Rebels won the final four matches to advance to the MW final against Utah State.

The Bulldogs opened the MW tournament with a 4-0 win over No. 7 Air Force.

Women’s tennis – Air Force’s Lily Forlini pulled out a 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 victory over Ndindi Ndunda at No. 5 singles for the clinching point as the seventh-seeded Falcons upset No. 2 Fresno State in the quarterfinals of the Mountain West Championships.

The Bulldogs (14-9) won the doubles point with a sweep from No. 1 Georgia Lawson-Emma Wilson, No. 2 Juliana Triebe-Galina Bykova and No. 3 Katerina Stloukalova-Olivia Noble, and had singles wins from No. 4 Triebe and No. 6 Lawson.

This story was originally published April 30, 2017 at 3:14 PM with the headline "Fresno State rallies to beat UNLV, complete softball series sweep."