APPLETON, Wis. -- The Lawrence University softball team won a thriller in game one Friday and went on to a nonconference doubleheader split with Ripon College at Whiting Field.
    The Vikings took the opener 3-2 and Ripon won the second game 13-5.
    In the opener, the Vikings got a stellar pitching performance from Emilia Jackson, who went the distance. She allowed eight hits and two runs, struck out eight and walked one. Amanda Karnatz went 2-for-3 with a double and a triple to pace the Vikings (2-8).
    Ripon (3-17) led 1-0 when Karnatz tripled in the third and scored on a passed ball to tie it. Ripon took the lead back in the fifth with the help of a pair of base hits, and held that 2-1 advantage heading to the bottom of the sixth.
    Karnatz started a rally in the sixth with a one-out double. After a strikeout, the Red Hawks were trying to walk Ceara Larson but Alyssa Banta's ball four pitch was in the dirt and skipped away. Karnatz moved to third, and Larson headed to second. As catcher Taylor Natzke got the ball back to Banta, they turned away from Karnatz, who stole home, which was left unprotected, to tie the game at 2-2.
    Mikayla Jeneske followed with a single to center field, and Larson scored to put the Vikings up 3-2.
    Jackson worked around an infield single in the seventh to secure the victory.
    In the second game, Ripon pulled away over the final two innings. 
    Shelby Johnson blasted her first career homer for the Vikings, and Larson went 2-for-4. 
    The Vikings got on the board in the second when Chapin Grumhaus started the rally with a single. After a pair of errors, Karnatz smacked a two-run single and Lawrence led 2-0.
    Ripon took the lead with four runs in the fourth against Johnson, who made the start. She got two of those runs back and tied the game in the bottom half of the inning with a two-run blast. Laney Martens had started that inning with a triple for the Vikings.
    Ripon then took the lead back with one run in the fifth, tacked on two more in the sixth and six in the seventh to seal the win.
    Lilli Smith allowed nine hits over seven innings to pick up the win. Johnson took the loss and Lizzy Angemi made her collegiate debut in relief for the Vikings.