Stephen F. Austin
Louisiana-Monroe
Softball Sweeps UL-Monroe
4/9/2005 12:00:00 AM | Softball
April 9, 2005
NACOGDOCHES, Texas-- Needing a strong finish in their final nine Southland Conference games to possibly qualify for a spot in the Southland Conference postseason softball tournament, the SFA Ladyjacks took their first steps toward that goal Saturday with a doubleheader sweep of the UL-Monroe Lady Indians. SFA won game one in the eleventh inning, 5-4 and kept the momentum going with a 5-0 shutout in the nightcap.
SFA (14-23, 6-14) fell behind UL-Monroe (13-36, 4-16) 3-0 in the top of the third inning in game one when the Indians scored three runs on five hits off the Ladyjacks' Nicole Carter. SFA answered with two runs in their half of the inning to cut the lead to one. Both the Ladyjacks' runs were unearned after Crystal Dahlquist reached on what would have been the third out of the inning when the catcher mishandled the third strike allowing Dahlquist to reach.
Tara Hersey singled down the line in right to move Dahlquist to third which was followed by a walk to load the bases. Ragen Rutherford came through with a sharp single to drive in both runs.
Hersey also drove in a run in the fifth to tie the score at 3-3 with a ringing double to the gap in left center. UL-Monroe scored a run in the top of the seventh inning off Traci Moore to move ahead 4-3, but SFA came right back to tie the score with a run in the bottom half of the seventh when Hersey singled to open the inning. She eventually scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Carter to force extra innings.
The Ladyjacks finally got the gamewinner in the bottom of the eleventh inning when Hersey once again came through with an RBI single to win it for the Ladyjacks. Moore picked up the win after working 7.2 innings and allowing one run on six hits and striking out six.
SFA kept it going in game two with a 5-0 shutout win over the Lady Indians as Moore, Carter and Julie Morse combined to blank ULM on just three hits. Carter picked up the win with 2.1 innings of work and Traci Moore came on to close it out with two innings of scoreless relief.
Carrie Woydziak went 4-4 with a run scored and an RBI in game two and Jessica Tullos also went 2-3 with an RBI and two runs scored. Crystal Dahlquist also added a two RBI double in the nightcap as SFA scored five runs on eleven hits off UL-Monroe pitching.
The series wraps up with a single game Sunday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. ™
