KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Ally Hendricks continued her surge of recent power hitting Saturday. She hit her team-leading sixth home run as Three Rivers College split with MCC-Maple Woods, losing the opener 7-3 and winning the nightcap 4-1. "It was a shot," Three Rivers coach Jeff Null said. "She's staying hot. The second game she had a tough game, but she just hit it at people." Hendricks' shot in the third inning of the opener scored all three of the Lady Raiders' runs. She plated Lexi Morris and Courtney Slayton, who singled to leadoff the inning. Hendricks went 0 for 3 in the nightcap to finish 2 for 6 with a run and three RBIs for the day. The Poplar Bluff alumna who got just 19 at-bats as a Three Rivers freshman last year is currently hitting about .396 with a .792 slugging percentage. After a slow start to the season, Hendricks has had three home runs in Three Rivers' last eight games, and driven in 13 runs along the way. Hendricks has been batting sixth in the lineup recently, a spot where Null said she will see more fastballs while continuing to improve against off-speed pitches. Destiny Bolen set the school single-season and career home run records last year, with 15 home runs in the season and 22 for her career. Hendricks' home run brought the Lady Raiders (12-15, 4-4 Region XVI) within a run of Maple Woods (13-14, 5-5 Region XVI) but the Lady Monarchs tacked on insurance runs in the fourth and sixth innings to give Three Rivers pitcher Wiley Lowry her fifth loss of the season.

Lowry (6-5), allowed 15 hits, 10 from the top four batters in the lineup, to go with one strikeout. "It just seemed like everything they put in play found a hole," Null said. "She got behind in the count all day and they were a pretty good hitting team." Carleigh Burnett (5-7) allowed six hits and no walks with seven strikeouts to get the win in the nightcap. "She's kind of been all or nothing lately," Null said. "She was excellent." Burnett is 4-1 in her last five starts, including two scoreless games and two games where she gave up one run. In her lone loss, against Jefferson, she allowed five hits and one run while the Lady Raiders were held scoreless. Her worst start in the stretch, against St. Charles, she won after Three Rivers held on for an 8-7 win. Burnett allowed six hits and five runs over four innings in that win. Randi Scruggs singled and scored on Slayton's single in the first inning to give Three Rivers a lead it wouldn't relinquish. Lowry singled to leadoff the third and scored on an error. In the fifth, with Three Rivers still leading 2-0, Morgan Ledure reached on an error to start the frame, and scored on Morris' triple. Slayton then drove in Morris with a groundout. Burnett gave up a leadoff single, which scored on an error, in the bottom of the fifth. "It was a big win that second game to come back and prove to ourselves that we can beat them," Null said. Three Rivers is now 9-3 since March 9. Four runs was the fewest runs the Lady Raiders have scored in a win this season. In each of their previous nine wins, they scored at least eight runs. "A lot of our sophomores that we have back didn't win a whole lot last year," Null said. "Hopefully it is a sign that we are starting to figure it out." When scoring at least five runs, the Lady Raiders are 11-2 this season. "It sounds like we need to pitch a little bit better and we'll be OK," Null said. "We either hit it really well or we hit it really bad. There is not a whole lot in between. We just have to get more consistent offensively." They finish their four game set against Maple Woods Sunday. "Hopefully heading into tomorrow we'll have a little confidence," Null said. "I think us, them and North Central are battling for that third spot (in the region) right now."