Game 1 Box Score
Game 2 Box Score
MILLERSVILLE, Pa. – West Chester scored three runs in the top of the 10th inning and then held on for the win in game one of a softball doubleheader at Millersville, clinching the first PSAC Eastern Division title in school history, as the Golden Rams split the twinbill with the Marauders on a brisk and windy Saturday afternoon.
West Chester took game one , 10-8 in eight innings, while Millersville won game two, 9-6.
West Chester (29-13, 12-4 PSAC East) finishes the regular season conference schedule in a tie for first place with Kutztown (35-14, 12-4). However, the Golden Rams win the tie-breaker by virtue of their four wins against East Stroudsburg while the Golden Bears split their four games with the Warriors.
Millersville (23-24, 5-11) came one inning shy in game one of spoiling West Chester’s first divisional crown.
Sam Ingersoll hit a two-run shot in the 10th inning that put West Chester on top 10-7. Kelsey Rapp was placed on second base at the start of the inning in the international tie-breaker rule. Stef Kerbacher hit a bunt single, advancing Rapp to third where she would eventually score the go-ahead run on a wild pitch. After a ground out, Ingersoll smashed her 13th home run of the year to give the visitors a three-run cushion.
Millersville answered with a run in the bottom of the 10th, but it was not enough. Brooke Muth picked up her fifth save of the season, helping Devon Utterback get out of a bases loaded jam with just the one tally. Utterback (1-1) picked up her first win of the season in her first appearance of the year.
Muth started the game and pitched the first eight innings, allowing four earned runs on 10 hits. She walked five and struck out six.
Utterback suffered the loss in game two as Millersville scored six runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to erase a 6-3 deficit en route to earning the split.
The Golden Rams will serve as one of three hosts in the opening weekend of the PSAC softball postseason tournament by virtue of winning the Eastern Division. Mercyhurst (second place in the Western Division) and Lock Haven (third place in Central Division). Bloomsburg, who won the Central Division, and California (Pa.), who won the West, are the other two host sites.
The PSAC softball postseason tournament is a two-day, double-elimination tournament on Friday and Saturday, April 23-24, Mercyhurst will play Lock Haven at West Chester’s South Campus Complex at 11 a.m. on Friday, April 23. The loser of that contest will play West Chester at 1 p.m. The Golden Rams will then play the winner of game one at 3 p.m.
If all three teams remain after day one, lots will be drawn to determine which teams play in Game four on Saturday and which team receives a bye to game five. If two teams remain after day one, the two teams will play one or two games to determine champion, depending on need of double-elimination format.
The winner at each site advances to the championship round of the PSAC postseason tournament the following weekend for a three-team, double elimination tournament at the top remaining seed.
