LA
JUNTA, Colo. – Mariah Shepherd’s one-out single in the seventh proved to be the
game winner as the Western Nebraska Community College softball team opened up
the Region IX tournament in La Junta, Colo., with a come-from-behind 4-3 win over
Lamar Community College on Friday.
The
Cougars now advance in the winner’s bracket in a 6 p.m. game Saturday against the
winner of Otero Junior College and Trinidad State Junior College. That contest
is slated for a 10 a.m. first pitch.
WNCC
coach Maria Winn-Ratliff said this tournament is taking one game at a time and
surviving to the next game.
“It is survive and advance. We
scored when we needed to,” she said. “We are just worried about taking it one
game at a time. It is survive and advance, and we just need to do the things we
need to do to come out with a victory.”
Winn-Ratliff said they didn’t
play their best, but a win is a win and that is all they can ask for.
“We just need to keep getting
timely hits,” she said. “Today, we had runners in scoring position in the
first, second and third innings, and we need to be able to score them with the
timely hit. We just need to clean up our defense a little bit more.”
WNCC
showed a lot of will power in posting the win as they came back from deficits
twice.
Lamar
opened the scoring by scoring two runs in the third inning. WNCC came right
back, however, and scored two of their own on just two hits. Sarah Hawrlyluk
started things by drawing a walk followed by Danielle Hearn reaching base on an
error. Jocelyn Stubbs followed with a clutch one-out single to score both runs
to knot the game.
Neither
team scored again until the seventh inning. Lamar took the lead as Sarah Payne
worked WNCC pitcher Bianca Duran for a walk. Payne then stole second and third
and scored on the overthrow to third base with the go-ahead run.
WNCC
wasted little time in silencing the momentum in the bottom of the seventh.
Hearn started the inning with a walk. Hearn was then lifted for pinch runner
Kayla Romey. Romey came around to score on a Duran hit that the pitcher
air-mailed to right field for the tying run.
Duran
was then lifted for pinch runner Kimmie Widick. Widick was then sacrificed to
second before Shepherd took the first pitch and sent a line drive to the
outfield to easily score Widick with the winning run.
Both
teams did not mount many hits with WNCC out hitting Lamar 6-5. Both teams
committed two errors in the contest.
Stubbs
and Shepherd each finished with two hits for the Cougars. Stubbs had two RBIs
whle Shepherd had two singles and the game-winning single.
Duran
picked up the pitching win, going all seven innings while scattering five hits
and striking out four. Duran allowed just one earned run while walking one.
In
other scores in the tournament, Lamar
dropped McCook Community College 9-0 in the tourney’s opener. Trinidad State
then 8-run-ruled Dawson Community College 11-3 before Otero Junior College hung
on to escape the upset bid by Northeastern Junior College 2-1.
Lamar (34-27) 002
000 1 – 3 5 2
WNCC (43-24) 002
000 2 – 4 6 2
WP – Bianca Duran
Friday’s Scores
Lamar 9, McCook 0
Trinidad 11, Dawson 3
Otero 2, NE Colorado 1
WNCC 4, Lamar 3
Saturday’s Schedule
10 a.m. – Trinidad vs. Otero
Noon – Dawson vs. NJC
2 p.m. – McCook vs. Loser Trinidad/Otero
4 p.m. – Lamar vs. winner Dawson/NJC
6 p.m. – WNCC vs. winner Trinidad/Otero
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