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SU's late rally falls short; Lady Hawks eliminated by Oklahoma City
GULF SHORES, Ala. -- Shorter University's softball team was no stranger to late deficits and time and time again in 2011, the Lady Hawks had answered the challenge for late victories.
Against one of the NAIA's most storied softball programs, another late rally was asking a bit too much.
No. 9 Oklahoma City University got six strikeouts, a home run and four RBI from star junior Lily LaVelle and survived a seventh-inning push from Shorter to stay alive in the NAIA Softball National Championship with a 4-2 victory over the Lady Hawks in an elimination game in Gulf Shores, Ala.
The Lady Hawks (46-15), who were making their fifth straight national tournament appearance and had advanced to bracket play for the second straight year, scored twice in the bottom of the seventh and had the bases loaded with one out in the frame, but simply could not fight all the way back after falling behind early to the eight-time national champion Stars (48-13).
Oklahoma City, which is making its 25th national tournament appearance, will move on to another elimination game against Belhaven University at 6:30 p.m. ET later today.
The Stars had to hold their breath through a drama-filled final three outs that saw Shorter nearly pull off another improbable comeback.
LaVelle had held Shorter to four hits over the first six innings, but ran into trouble against the Lady Hawks nursing a 4-0 lead to start the seventh. LaVelle gave up a single to senior Kara Pollock to lead off the frame and after getting Brooke Bryan to line out to left, hit Jackie Castaneda with a pitch and walked Anna Frazee to load the bases.
Bre Johnson came in to pinch hit and promptly singled to center to drive in a run and cut the Stars' deficit to 4-1. Senior Amanda Albertson followed with a single to center that plated Castaneda and Shorter then trailed just 4-2.
But LaVelle, who entered the game with a 0.80 ERA over 240-plus innings pitched, worked out of the jam by fanning Charlsie Broome after the junior had fouled off two pitches and forcing Jessica Womble into a pop out to second to keep her stars in contention for the program's ninth national title.
LaVelle's most devastating contributions came at the plate.
Her two-out, two-run single in the second -- the last of four straight two out hits for Oklahoma City in the inning -- put the first two runs of the game on the board for the Stars. Her team's leader in home runs, LaVelle cracked her 20th homer of the season in the fifth, a two-run shot to left that put Oklahoma City ahead 4-0.
That proved to be the winning stroke as Shorter broke out of the offensive shackles in time to make it interesting in its last at-bat, but ultimately had fallen too far behind to complete the comeback.
Five Lady Hawks participated in their final game with the program -- Albertson, Pollock, Libby Munson, Chelsea Blair and Kayla Lewis. Each player played a large role in Shorter's ascension to the upper echelon of the NAIA softball hierarchy.
Munson, Shorter's all-time leader in just about every pitching and offensive category, went out with another gutsy performance as she fell to 27-7 in her final season with the Lady Hawks.
Munson, who battled a blister on the middle finger of her pitching hand that she suffered in the first game of the day against Cal State-San Marcos, tossed her fifth compete game of the national championship while giving up four earned runs -- the first earned runs charged to her in the 2011 tournament -- on nine hits. She struck out two and continuously kept Shorter in the ball game with timely pitches that stranded four Stars on base.
Albertson was one of two players with multiple hits on the day. She finished 2-for-3 with the RBI in her final collegiate game while Womble also collected a pair of hits on the day.
