April 11, 2009
GEORGETOWN, Texas - The Pirates of Southwestern University took care of business on Saturday with a constant barrage of hits to capture first place in the SCAC. SU improves to 18-14 overall and 8-3 in the conference while Trinity falls to 9-19 overall and 7-5 in conference action.
In game one, Trinity scored first in the second inning after a single by Smith brought in Wright who narrowly escaped the tag by SU's C Bre Lewis. With runners at first and second and no outs Trinity looked poised for a big inning, but Southwestern held them at bay with a pick off at second base and a 543 double play to end the inning.
The Pirates responded with a run of their own in the bottom of the second. P Kaitlyn Pavlicek hit a single to left field to lead off the inning and was eventually moved to third base on a pair of infield grounders by 1B Kat Hoover and DH Aly Pulver. With two outs, CF Taylor Turpin stepped to the plate and singled between second and third to bring in Pavlicek.
Trinity posted two more runs in the third on a pair of singles and SU errors to lead 3-1 after three.
After the Pirates retired Trinity three up, three down in the top of the fourth they got to work at the plate and batted around in the inning. LF Blair Wallace led off with a double down the left field line and advanced to third on Pavlicek's slow roller back to the pitcher that was misplayed and left the Pirates safe at first and third. Erin Fonseca came in to pinch run for Pavlicek and stole second to put both runners in scoring position for Hoover. Hoover battled off four foul balls before being hit by Losey's pitch and loading the bases for Pulver.
Pulver poked one to shallow right field and brought in Wallace and kept the bases loaded with no outs. Turpin followed with a single up the middle to bring in Fonseca, Hoover scored on a wild pitch, Pulver came in on RF Kenna Dies' infield sacrifice hit and Turpin was brought in on Lewis' sacrifice fly. After all was said and done Southwestern led by three, 6-3.
The Tigers regained the lead in the fifth, stringing together four singles and one triple with some costly Pirate errors to go up 8-6. Lyndsy Maus came in relief for Pavlicek and closed out the inning.
The Pirates closed in on the Tigers by scoring one run with two outs in the bottom half of the inning. TU pushed back and scored one in response to go back up by two, 9-7, in the sixth and held the Pirates at bay to take the game one victory.
Southwestern evened it up again on a 2 RBI double by Pavlicek that brought in Wallace and Gola to bring it back even at nine and Pavlicek caught Trinity off guard and advanced to third without a play. She scored on Hoover's follow up single to give SU the 10-9 lead.
Trinity's Wright reached on a Pirate error but was doubled off on a line drive to Meeker by Carni to put SU just one out from the win. Pavlicek got Smith to ground out to Gola at third to capture the victory and improve to 10-5 on the year. Trinity's Losey received the loss to fall to 7-8 overall.
Turpin, Pavlicek and Wallace had two hits a piece for Southwestern while four Tigers notched two hits games. Turpin also had two stolen bases in game one.
Defense and pitching were the key for Southwestern in game two and they wasted no time getting on the board either, scoring two runs in the first and second innings to lead 4-0 after two.
SU pushed their lead to seven by scoring three runs in the fourth, largely due to a pair of back to back doubles by Wallace and Pavlicek and pushed two more across in the sixth to take the 9-1 run rule victory.
Maus pitched a fantastic game for Southwestern to improve to 8-8 on the season. She allowed only one run and four hits while striking out three and walking none. Pavlicek, Wallace and Ambrose each had multi-hit games for Southwestern.
The Pirates finish their regular season on the road at Colorado College for two days of double-headers. They begin on Saturday at 1:00 pm.