Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Fort Myers, Fla. - The Upper Midwest Athletic Conference has had two Player of the Week announcements to the 2013 softball season. Nicole Starkson and Gena Chester have taken the honor the first two weeks and the two Mankato West graduates proved they were able of winning it again with big performances in the opening day of games at the Gene Cusic Classic in Fort Myers, Fla. on Sunday.

In their first game of the day against Elms College, Bethany trailed 2-0 in the top of the seventh. Chester, the reigning Player of the Week, came up with two runners on and two outs. She was down to her final strike before she connected with a double to right center field scoring both Kelsey Pekarna and Andrea Donley to tie the score at two.

The Vikings kept the runs coming in the eighth inning. Ashley Jensen started the frame with a bunt single moving Aimee Wiechmann to third. Starkson knocked home Wiechmann reaching on a fielder's choice. Angela Timm and Donley both drove in runs with RBI singles to make it 6-2.

Starkson was stellar on the mound only one seventh-inning hit and striking out five. The two runs Elms scored were unearned.

Bethany took on Nazareth College in their second game of the day. It was another close game until Nazareth erupted for five sixth-inning runs to put the Vikings away 10-3.

Amanna Berthusen hit an RBI single over the third baseman's head to score Chester for the game's first run. Nazareth would score the game's next three runs before Pekarna put the Vikings on the board again in the fourth with an RBI double to center scoring Jensen. Rebecca Ludewig would double and score in the sixth.

Bethany is now 3-3 as two more opponents await on Monday. They play Wooster College at noon and then follow that up with a game against Olivet College.