Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 WEST CHESTER, Pa. - West Chester's
Kelly Anderson went 3-for-4 with a home run in the opener, but West Virginia Wesleyan right-hander Jessica Griffin kept the Golden Rams' bats silent in the nightcap as the two Atlantic Super Regional combatants split the first two games of the best-of-three series Saturday on the campus of West Chester University.
West Chester (40-20) and West Virginia Wesleyan (46-14) will play a third-and-deciding game Sunday at 12 p.m. to determine who advances to the 2014 NCAA Division II national finals in Salem, Va., next week. Sunday's winner will play Armstrong Atlantic State (Ga.) out of the Southeast Region. They defeated host North Georgia in a third-and-deciding game Saturday to stamp their ticket to Salem, Va.
Tickets to Sunday's decisive game three remain at $5 for adults, $3 for students and $2 for children 6-years-old and younger. Fans unable to make it to South Campus can listen to the game live on WCHE 1520 AM and online at www.wche1520.com.
West Virginia Wesleyan struck first in game one with a run-scoring single from catcher Megan Malenstyn in the bottom of the first inning. However, West Chester, playing the role of visitor on its own home field due to being the lower seed, plated two runs in the third and never relinquished the lead.
Kim Murl, who went the distance inside the circle, helped her own cause with a double to right-center that scored Anderson and pinch-runner
Janessa Rios.
Jess Schuck singled home Anderson in the fifth to put the Golden Rams in front 3-1.
West Virginia Wesleyan pulled to within one with a single run in the bottom of the sixth. However, Anderson restored WCU's two-run lead with a solo home run to left-center in the seventh.
Murl (22-10) surrendered 11 hits while walking two and striking out four. West Virginia Wesleyan stranded 13 base runners in the game one loss. The Bobcats' Jacquie Omichinski (19-6) allowed four runs, three of them earned, on eight hits. She walked two and struck out three.
In the second game of the day, WVWC's Jessica Griffin (13-5) blanked the Golden Rams for the first five innings, while the Bobcats plated two runs in the fifth and three more in the sixth to open up a 5-0 lead.
Griffin went the distance inside the circle for the win. She scattered eight hits over seven innings, allowing just one unearned run in the bottom of the seventh. Murl lasted 5.2 innings, yielding five runs, four of them earned, on eight hits.
Laura Altenburger went 2-for-3 in the nightcap with West Chester's only RBI.
J.P. Norris went 2-for-4 in game two, recording her 200th career hit in the process. Murl went 2-for-4 to finish the twinbill 3-for-8 at the plate.
In the nightcap, West Chester stranded nine runners on base, including leaving the bases loaded in the first and seventh, and stranding runners at second and third in the sixth.
NOTES: West Chester moves to 8-7 all-time in the NCAA Division II Softball Tournament … the Golden Rams' win in game one marked the first win for WCU in the Super Regional round … West Chester dropped both games at Kutztown in its only other trip this far into the postseason last spring … West Chester's win in game one also marked the 40th win of the season for the Golden Rams – the first time a WCU softball team has accomplished a 40-win season … Sr., 1B Jill Murray became the first player in PSAC history to eclipse 500 putouts in a single season.
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