The Hawks softball team played their first double-header of the regular season against the American River College Beavers on Thursday and won both games.

The first game resulted in a Hawks win with a final score of 4-0. The second game finished with a comeback by the Hawks after being down 3-0 for the first four innings and ended with a score of 9-4 to complete the doubleheader sweep.

“We were definitely lethargic at the beginning,” said sophomore shortstop Gabi Lipsky. “We just wanted to be competitive and we’re coming off of a six-game winning streak from pre-season.”

Lipsky said she was excited to get back into it after a game delay and how the weather impacted practice being held indoors.

In the third inning, Lipsky collided with a runner on second base during a steal. There was a short timeout before the game was resumed with both players.

“Those things are going to happen,” head coach Kristy Schroeder said. “That’s just the way you play the game.”

Schroeder said she was patient with the team and encouraged them to keep playing hard back as well as fight tooth and nail. She also said she was making constant adjustments taking advantage of momentum.

“They were really working the at-bats a little bit more,” Schroeder said. “Eventually, we stuck with our plan.”

Freshman pitcher Tatiana Blas threw a total of nine strikeouts in the second game with two of them coming at the top of the fifth inning.

Blas said there was a lot of talk on the field and the Beaver’s dugout was loud. She also said there were a few good hits that initiated a team shift after her strikeouts.

“We were down on ourselves, letting them get into our head a little bit,” Blas said. “I thought more about how my girls were going to feel about me pitching and how I needed to play for them better.”

The momentum-shifting hit for the Hawks came in the bottom of the fifth inning by sophomore pitcher Trinity Jordan. Jordan hit a home run over the two-hundred-foot fence in left field making it a 3-1 ballgame with ARC leading and setting the Hawk’s dugout into a celebration.

The Hawks held the Beavers to zero runs in the top of the sixth inning as they scored eight runs in the bottom of the inning.

While the Hawks led the top of the seventh inning 9-3, ARC scored one final run until Blas struck out their last batter with two runners on base.

Lipsky said the team’s nerves were high heading into the game, but wanted to start off with a bang in the regular season against conference opponents.