Ramapo Box Score /
Gustavus Adolphus Box Score
PANAMA CITY, Fla. – After an early-morning hiccup, the Lady Wildcats got back to the business of winning in convincing fashion at the NCAA Division III Leadoff Classic. After fighting for a tough, 11-8 win over Ramapo in the pool play finale, Louisiana College defeated Gustavus Adolphus 8-0 on the mercy rule in the quarterfinals of the Gold Championship Bracket.
In the semifinals, to be played at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, LC will face a familiar foe: American Southwest Conference East Division foe Texas-Tyler.
The ASC East, it should be noted, holds all three of the top seeds in the Gold Bracket with ETBU holding the No.1 seed, Louisiana College the No. 2 and Texas-Tyler the No. 3.
And each of the three won its quarterfinal game, meaning that The ASC East makes up ¾ of the final four.
“I think we established that our ASC East Division is one of the toughest in the nation,” LC coach Tim Whitman said. “All three of us are ranked in the top 5 nationally and all three of s are undefeated and scoring a lot of runs. You can't argue with those facts … We've got a tough game tomorrow. Tyler presents a lot of problems.”
The Lady Wildcats (14-0) played polar opposite games from morning to evening, save the presence of plenty offense.
Against Ramapo, the Lady Wildcats allowed their first runs of the tournament and committed seven errors and had to score three runs in the seventh inning to pull away.
Versus Gustavus, it was clean defense, power offense and a game that took approximately one hour and 10 minutes to conclude.
“We started out not playing well at all,” Whitman said. “That first game was probably the worst defensive game we played in a few years, but we fought through and got a win … In the second game, we seemed to get everything corrected.”
It took the Lady Cats only moments to establish their dominance and eventual winning pitcher Rene Schwartzenburg (10-0) struck out six of the first seven batters she faced and the LC offense scored a run in the first, two in the third and five in the fourth – along the way benefiting from two-runs homeruns by both Devan Greene and Jodi Montagnino – to force an early end to the contest.
“Rene did another great job for us,” Whitman said. “Gustavus could have easily gotten the same big shots that we did, but Rene and our defense found a way to shut them down.”
Schwartzenburg finished with seven strikeouts in the game (bringing her tournament total to 24 in 14 innings) while allowing only one hit and issuing no walks.
The LC defense also backed her up with big plays coming from Greene at third and senior Aimee Dubroc at first.
“Well, we had a bit of a rough game in that first one,” Greene said. “We didn't play like we are capable of playing. We wanted to show that we were the type of team that could bounce back from mistakes and bad games.”
If there were errors in the first game, they might have had something to do with a steady 25-35 miles-per-hour winds blowing from left field to the first-base dugout.
And on a sandy field located less than one mile from the Gulf of Mexico, defenders had to contend not only with unpredictable flight paths for fly balls but also no shortage of dust in the eye.
“I definitely don't want to make any excuses for the way we played in the first game,” Greene said. “I will say that it was a factor. Not an excuse, though.”
Greene finished the Gustavus game 1-for-2 with a run scored and two driven in. Allison Frye and Montagnino were also good for two RBI apiece.
In the Ramapo game, Montagnino went 2-for-4 with a run scored, Mary Alice Roy 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI, Greene 2-for-4 with two runs scored Frye 2-for-2 with a runs cored and two RBI and Ashleigh Clement 2-for-3 with two runs scored.
Freshman Carli Wheeler (3-0), pitching in relief of Kelly Williams, picked up the win going two innings and allowing just one hit while striking out three.
