The Golden Hawks held their senior night on Friday during their final home games of the season against the Western Mustangs. Graduating seniors Brooke Cameron (Kinesiology) and Avery Hilpert (Master of Social Work) were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the softball program.
 
The wins against the Mustangs have been hard to come by in the past, with the Golden Hawks losing their previous six match ups. The first game of the doubleheader was dominated by the Western offense as they outhit Laurier 10 to 2 en route to a 13-2 victory.
 
Brooke Cameron got the start in the pitching circle in the second game. Laurier would jump out to an early lead on a single and stolen base by Avery Hilpert. Western would reply with 3 of their own in the bottom of the first and 2 more in the bottom of the second. 
 
The Golden Hawks bats came alive in the third, earning 6 runs to retake the lead off hits from Hilpert, Amy Hughes, Maddy Halstead, Natalie Donnelle and Lauren Artt. The Golden Hawks would add 3 more runs in the fourth and 3 in the fifth pacing themselves to a 13-9 victory, which is the largest margin of victory over Western in program history.  In total, the Golden Hawk base runners would steal 10 bases during the game and collected 13 hits.
 
On Saturday Laurier traveled to Guelph for a doubleheader with the Gryphons on their senior day. First year Lauren Artt got the start in game one for the Golden Hawks and gave up just 4 hits and no earned runs through 4 innings. The Laurier bats remained red hot, combining for 16 hits led by Artt and Hilpert with 3 hits each and Cameron, Halstead, and Skylar Smith with 2 hits. Hayley Shackell came in to pitch 2 innings of scoreless relief.
 
In the second game, Cameron returned to the circle for the start and pitched 4 innings with no earned runs allowed. Laurier jumped on the board early with 4 runs in the bottom of the first led by a single by Emma Diegel and a double by Hughes combined with a series of Guelph errors.
 
The Gryphons would cut into the Laurier lead in the fourth with back to back triples and a single scoring 3 runs. Laurier answered right back in the bottom of the frame scoring 2 off hits by Hilpert and Cameron. Shackell once again came in to provide an inning of relief pitching.
 
The Golden Hawks walked off the victory in the bottom of the fifth when singles by Halstead, Hilpert, and Diegel combined with a Hughes double to score 5 runs.
 
With the wins against Guelph, the Golden Hawks move to 14-4 on the season, surpassing last season's 13 regular season wins. They will now prepare for the Ontario University Softball league playoffs taking place October 19 and 20 in Napanee, hosted by Queen's.