A John Carroll softball sweep over archrival Mount Union always carries significance.

This time, it carried historical significance.

A late inning rally in game one provided the spark for a two-game sweep for the Blue Streaks by scores of 5-4 and 9-1 over the Purple Raiders Wednesday afternoon. The victories kept John Carroll in a first place tie with Capital and Heidelberg in the Ohio Athletic Conference.

It was just the third time in program history that JCU had swept a regular season series from the Purple Raiders. The first was in 1992 and the second was in 2009. Both of those took place in Alliance, Ohio.

Today's sweep was the first that took place at Bracken Field.

It was not promising in the early going. Carly Simecek hit a solo home run in the second inning of game one to give JCU a 1-0 lead, but Mount Union would plate four unearned runs -- three in the fourth and one in the fifth -- to take a 4-1 lead.

The Blue Streaks came alive in the bottom of the fifth, when Hannah Mizener drove in a run with a two-out double. 

Christie Wade came through with two big plays in the sixth, first with an RBI single that scored Simecek, then scoring from third on a two-out wild pitch to tie the contest at 4-4.

In the seventh inning, after starting pitcher Rachel Byrnes sit down the Purple Raiders 1-2-3, Ashlee Unrue had a one-out single up the middle to score Mikki Vance from second for the winning run.

Byrnes went seven innings and allowed four runs (none earned) on four hits, striking out six and walking one for her eighth win of the season.

JCU pounded out 12 hits, with Unrue, Wade and Lauren Cianciolo each collecting two hits. All nine starters in the line-up had one hit.

Game two was all John Carroll, as the Blue Streaks scored in all five innings for the 9-1 victory. Mizener had a solo home run in the first inning as part of a 3-4 game in which she drove in three runs.

JCU tallied two runs in the first, oen in the second, and one in the third before exploding for four runs in the fourth. The putaway run was scored in the bottom fo the fifth, when Mizener singled home Cianciolo to reach the eight-run "mercy rule" margin.

AnnMarie Kirchner was lights out, allowing just one unearned run on four hits, and struck out two without walking a single batter. She improved to 6-2 on the year.

Cianciolo and Alyssa Coleman each had two hits as part of a ten-hit attack.

John Carroll is now 14-6 overall and 5-1 in the OAC. Mount Union dropped to 10-10 and 3-3 in league play.