In a first-round matchup laden with storylines, top-seeded Eastern Mennonite played eighth-seeded Randolph Thursday noon at the ODAC Tournament in Salem, Va. The Lady Royals had won last year's tourney, only they did so from the No. 8 seed, which the WildCats held this year. EMU Coach J.D. McCurdy had also coached Randolph's skipper, Caroline Cubbage, in high school in 2003. On top of all that, the two teams also split when they met four days earlier in Harrisonburg.
After a 4-0 run through the 2010 tourney, the Lady Royals had a rough start to the 2011 go-around, giving up a lead in the seventh before falling 6-4 in extra innings.
The women were not on top of their game defensively and allowed Randolph to score a run in the first on a sacrifice fly, and then an unearned run in the third to go up 2-0.
The Lady Royals finally got their first hits in the third as
Jessica Blosser (Crimora, Va./Wilson Memorial) led off with a single and
Brooke Hensley (Elkton, Va./Spotswood) reached on a bunt.
Blosser ended up getting tagged out at home on a squeeze play for the first out.
Molly Smith (Elkton, Va./Spotswood) hit a sacrifice fly, bringing home Hensley, but Lee was tagged out at second on the play, ending the rally with just one run.
The game stayed at a 2-1 deficit until the bottom of the sixth, when Smith and
Courtney Allman (Weyers Cave, Va./Fort Defiance) laced one-out singles to get things rolling. After a relief pitcher got a strikeout for the second out,
Rasheeda Crews (Brookneal, Va./William Campbell) loaded the bases with an infield single.
Sophomore
Sara Jenkins (Stanley, Va./Page County) followed with the clutch double to give the Lady Royals their first lead of the tourney, 3-2. The women left the bases loaded, but had their precious lead.
The WildCats started their last at-bat with an infield single, just their fourth hit of the game, but Crews gunned down the runner when she tried to steal second. A walk and a single put two more runners on, followed by a grounder to first for the second out. But RC caught a break, as Lee threw a wild pitch on a swinging third strike, allowing the batter to reach and, more importantly, the tying run to score from third.
Lee drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the seventh, but was stranded on base as the game went into extra innings.
Starting in the eighth, each team opened their at-bat with a runner on second base. Randolph used a sacrifice to move their runner to third, but Lee, also the starting pitcher, got back-to-back strikeouts to leave the runner on base. EMU couldn't get the ball out of the infield and the game headed to another frame.
The WildCats broke through in the ninth, using two hits, an EMU error and a sacrifice fly to grab a 6-3 lead.
Hensley hit a one-out single in the bottom of the inning, bringing Lee to the plate as the tying run. EMU's career homerun leader launched a fly ball to left, but had to settle for the long sacrifice fly to make it 6-4. Smith then struck out to end the game.
Each of the teams had seven hits in the game, but the Lady Royals made three errors. Lee pitched all nine innings and took the loss. She struck out seven but walked five. Only two of the six runs were earned.
Hensley was the only EMU player with more than one hit, as she finished 2-4 with a run. Jenkins was 1-3 with her double and had two RBI. Smith finished with a hit, run and RBI.
With the loss, Eastern Mennonite must now work its way through the losers' bracket. The women next play Randolph-Macon later this afternoon at 4:00pm at the James I. Moyer Sports Complex in Salem. The fourth-seeded Yellow Jackets were the only team to sweep the Lady Royals, now 25-12, during the regular season.
A win would advance the women to a Friday game at 11:00am. A loss would end their year.
