In her eight years of coaching, coach Tyra Perry said she has seen some bizarre finishes to softball games.
Perry witnessed another wild finish on Saturday as Western swept Louisiana-Monroe in a weekend that featured rain and schedule changes.
And Western’s 4-3 victory in its last game on Saturday featured a pretty wild ending.
“They came out and were competitive,” Perry said. “They were competitive to the end, and they fought the circumstances.That’s what we want from our athletes.”
In game two, Louisiana-Monroe jumped out to a two-run lead in the top of the first, while Western remained scoreless until the bottom of the seventh, when senior third baseman Rebecca Horesky hit a bases-clearing double to tie the game at 2-2.
Both teams posted no score in the eighth inning with runners on base. The ninth inning had the Lady Toppers getting the first two outs before ULM’s Robin Biddle struck out on a dropped third strike.
But Biddle began to walk toward the dugout and then started running the bases with the Lady Toppers off the field huddled in front of their dugout. Junior catcher Rachelle Boucher ran to the pitchers mound to grab the ball and chased the ULM runner, holding her at third.
“Her team and her coaches had her run,” Boucher said. “She ran all the way around before we really realized it. So I ran and picked up the ball and tried to make it before she made it home.”
After another wild pitch, the ULM runner scored, giving the Warhawks a 3-2 lead going into the bottom of the ninth.
“It happened earlier in the game,” coach Perry said. “My coaches and I were talking about it that we needed to be aware of it. In this particular case, we saw it happen again. We thought we saw the young lady go to the dugout, but she never quite made it there.”
In the bottom of the ninth inning, junior designated hitter Shannon Smith hit a single that triggered an infield error from which senior Terri Ellingsworth and senior left fielder Sam Cronk came in to score to give Western the win in extra innings and the sweep of the series.
The win improved the Lady Toppers to 22-12 on the season and 8-4 in Sun Belt conference play. Jennifer Kempf said that the win proved much for the team.
“It shows that we have a lot of heart,” Kempf said. “We really want to win – we really want to be on top this season and do well in (Sun Belt) conference. We have a lot of fight in us, and I think that really came out this weekend.”
The Lady Toppers will return to action when they travel to take on Tennessee State at 5 p.m. tomorrow in Nashville.
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