Softball Season Ends in Tournament Loss

4/29/2017 6:02:00 AM

By: LC Sports Information - Brad Welborn

Box Score

The 2017 Louisiana College softball season ended on Friday night in the quarterfinals of the American Southwest Conference tournament at the hands of rival East Texas Baptist University. The Tigers erupted for five runs in the bottom of the fifth of a tie game to take the 7-2 win over the Wildcats, eliminating them from the tournament. LC finished the season with a 26-17 overall record, tied for the second most wins over the last five seasons.

After throwing 76 pitches in 6.0 innings earlier in the day in the win over Concordia, junior Savannah Settle got the nod in the Wildcats second elimination game of the day against ETBU. After giving up a 1-out single to right and getting a pop up to third for the second out, and the runner at second after a steal, a bloop single fell just between Taylor Hammock and Jordan Mason in shallow left field allowing the run to score, putting ETBU ahead 1-0 early.

The designated home team added another run in the second inning the old fashioned way, using a stolen base, sacrifice bunt, and a sacrifice fly to go up 2-0 after two innings of play. Thanks to two walks to start the top of the third, the Wildcats had the tying run on base with the top of the lineup at the plate. Leadoff batter Shelby Bergeron popped out to short after a lengthy battle at the plate, and Sami Walters was called out for hitting the ball out of the batter's box on a perfectly place push bunt to the left side for the second out.

Another long at-bat in the inning ended with Mattie Stine driving a ball to right field bringing in pinch runner Cheyenne Guillory from second to cut the lead in half. The next batter, Taylor Hammock, hit the very next pitch into left first, scoring Alyssa Ross from third to tie the game at two. Hammock advanced to second on the play and LC had two go ahead runs in scoring position for game one hero Jordan Mason, but a ground ball to third, and a bang-bang out call at first ended the inning, preventing the run at third from scoring.

A scoreless fourth and top of the fifth, kept the game tied at two going into the later stages of the game, with Chelsea Lewis taking over in the circle for the Wildcats to start the fourth inning. She kept the Tigers a bay in the fourth, but a base hit, two stolen bases and a throwing error on the steal attempt at third, allowed the go ahead run to score just two batters into the frame. The next batter was called safe at third on another close call that did not go the Wildcats way, leading to another run on an RBI single from the following batter.

Before the Wildcats could record the first out in the inning, ETBU had scored five runs on five hits and three Wildcat errors to take the 7-2 lead into the sixth inning. LC got two more base runners in the game, one in each of the final two innings but could not string together a series of hits to climb back.

All five of LC hits in the game came from two player, Mattie Stine (3-4) and Taylor Hammock (2-4), both RBI singles in the third inning. Savannah Settle and Chelsea Lewis each pitched 3.0 innings in the game, with Setlle allowing two runs on three hits with a strikeout and Lewis allowing five runs on six hits.

LC ends the 2017 season at 26-17, making their 14th post season appearance and sixth in a row. The Wildcats finished the season with a .283 team batting average, scoring 168 runs on 321 hits and eight home runs. This season was also a record breaking one for Mattie Stine and Shelby Bergeron. Stine now holds the school record for highest batting average for a single season, finishing with a .441 average after her 11-for-15 performance in the conference tournament. Bergeron is the school's single season stolen base leader, swiping 32 total bases in 35 attempts.

The 2017 All-Conference softball team will be announced via the conference office in the coming week.

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