Junior Maria Brooks winds up to pitch. (Max Silberg | Staff Photographer)

In the bottom of the sixth inning with two outs, junior third baseman Kennedy Grippo crushed the ball over the left-center wall to walk it off for the Bears. She ran home to her teammates huddled at the plate, celebrating the Bears’ 12-4 victory in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader against the University of Chicago. 

It couldn’t get any better than this.

Except it did, only two hours later, when first-year outfielder Oliva Lauber hit a no-doubter to left field, giving WashU yet another walk-off run-rule win over UChicago.

These victories came at the end of a dominant series sweep, where the Bears defeated the Maroons via the mercy rule in all three games. The three wins marked their first University Athletic Association (UAA) series win and seventh series sweep of the season.

“[The UAA] is one of the best conferences in the country, and so if we can, any win is great,” head coach Casey Cromwell said. “A sweep is incredible, and it feels good after last weekend … to turn it back around.”

With the three victories, WashU improved to 16-3-1 on the season, with a 4-2 record in the UAA.

The Bears opened the series aggressively, swiping three bags in the first inning and taking an early 2-0 lead on an RBI single from sophomore first baseman Harper Nix.

“Getting out ahead just allows your pitchers to play more freely, allows our defense to play more freely,” Cromwell said. “And so I’m happy that we did that, and we’ll now have learned the lesson of getting on top of on top of teams early and then making sure that we capitalize.”

The Maroons grabbed a run in the second inning on a defensive misstep from the Bears before adding two more in the fourth on another pair of errors.

However, it was all WashU from there. The Bears added another run in the fourth inning before exploding for a seven-run fifth, where the offense tallied five hits, four walks, and four stolen bases, including a 2-RBI single from first-year outfielder Julia Sullo. WashU added one more run in the sixth to seal the 11-3 victory.

Junior pitcher Maria Brooks dominated on the mound, giving up just two hits over six innings pitched with no earned runs to earn her eighth win of the season. Nix and Sullo lead the team with two hits apiece, while every WashU starter reached base at least once.

Cromwell cited the work her team has been putting in during practice as the key to their offensive success.

“In practice this week, from a live pitching opportunity, they got one at bat, and they knew their one at bat had to be had to be good. You had to focus,” Cromwell said.

The Bears continued their dominant performance in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, where a solo shot from Sullo and a triple from Nix propelled them to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. 

WashU added two runs in the second and scored two more in the fifth while only allowing one run by UChicago in the third inning.

The Maroons loaded the bases in the top of the sixth on a walk, HBP, and error, and were able to add two runs. But first-year pitcher Jessi Szafoni came in for WashU and retired three Maroons in a row, shutting down a potential comeback.

The Bears exploded for four hits and six runs in the bottom of the sixth, including the two-run homer by Grippo to seal the victory. Grippo also led WashU with three hits.

WashU came out swinging in the last game of the series, tallying four runs on six consecutive hits to start the first inning, including a double from junior outfielder Kristina Donaldson. After an early pitching change from the Maroons, the Bears added two more runs with a perfectly executed double steal with runners at the corners and another RBI single.

“This weekend was the first time we’ve really just capitalized on our small game,” Cromwell said. “We’re fast, we like to bunt, we like to run the bases, and we have … so it was good to just get back to our type of play.”

While UChicago added two in the third, the Bears answered with another run, making the score 7-2. WashU tallied three more runs in the sixth on an RBI single and the two-run homer from Lauber to take the 10-2 victory.

First-year pitcher Ava Peterson snagged the win with three innings of 2-run ball while Szafoni was nearly perfect through three innings pitched, allowing only one walk.

This victory capped off an impressive series for a WashU team that dominated on the mound, at the plate, and on the basepaths. The Bears will look to carry their momentum into another UAA matchup against New York University next weekend.