APPLETON, Wis. -- The Lawrence University softball team rallied for a pair of dramatic Midwest Conference victories on Saturday with a doubleheader sweep of Cornell College at Whiting Field.
    Lawrence knocked off the Rams 9-8 in the opener and took the nightcap 8-7.
    In the first game, Zoe Doherty had a dramatic three-run, walk-off triple and Mattigan Haller and Janessa Gonzalez both had three hits for the Vikings.
    Avery Chilson battled through the first 5.1 innings, and Kylan Arndt picked up the win with 1.2 innings of scoreless relief.
    The Vikings (9-15, 4-2 MWC) grabbed an early 2-0 lead when Haller smacked a two-run homer in the opening inning. Cornell scored three times in the third and five times in the sixth for an 8-3 lead. 
    Haller got things started in the bottom of the seventh with a one-out single, and Taylor Hughes was hit by a pitch with two outs to put two runners on base. Gonzalez followed with a single to score Haller and cut the lead to 8-4. Gillian Guerriero followed with a double to score Hughes and Gonzalez and trim the margin to 8-6. 
    Kourtney Mercer and Adrie Villa both walked to lead the bases and set the stage for Doherty. She smoked a line drive to the fence in center field to score all three runners and give Lawrence a 9-8 victory.
    Haller finished 3-for-4 with a double and a homer, three runs batted in and two runs scored. Gonzalez went 3-for-4 scored a runs and drove in a run.
    In the second game, the Vikings trailed 5-0 after the top of the second inning but battled back. Lawrence got single runs in the second and third and scored three times in the fourth to cut Cornell's lead to 6-5. In the fourth, Doherty and Haller both had run-scoring doubles. 
    Cornell pushed its lead to 7-5, but Lawrence rallied in the sixth. 
    Ava Pilgrim got hit by a pitch to get things started, and Doherty followed with a single. Hughes then delivered a single to score Pilgrim and trim the lead to 7-6. After Haller walked to load the bases, Jordan Wallin-Swanson drilled a single to center field to score Hughes and Doherty to give the Vikings an 8-7 lead.
    Cornell (10-15, 2-4) started to rally in the seventh with back-to-back, one-out singles. Mercer came on in relief of Lawrence starter Georgia Sedlack and got a flyout for the second out. After a walk loaded the bases, Mercer induced a ground ball out to end the game and pick up her first save of the season. Sedlack allowed four earned runs over 6.1 innings to improve to 5-4 on the season.  
    Doherty went 2-for-3 with a double, two runs scored and one driven in, and Hughes was 2-for-4 with three runs scored and a pair of RBIs. Gonzalez went 2-for-4 and scored a run.
    This marked the first time Lawrence had swept a doubleheader against Cornell in a series that started in 2000.