Stephen F. Austin
Baylor
Baylor Finishes Strong to Top SFA
2/10/2007 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Feb. 10, 2007
WACO, Texas - For the third time in as many games, the Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack softball team held the lead after the third inning. But, for the second game in a row, the Ladyjacks couldn't make that lead stand up. SFA was shut out in every inning but the third, as the Ladyjacks fell, 9-3, Saturday against Baylor, the host team in the Getterman Classic.
Despite taking the game's first lead and holding it through the middle of the fifth inning, the Ladyjacks fell to 1-2 on the young season. Friday evening, SFA led Kentucky, 9-2, after four-and-a-half innings but wound up on the wrong end of a 12-11 shootout. Saturday's game went much the same way, only on a smaller scale.
After each team went scoreless in the first two innings, the Ladyjacks drew first blood in the top of the third. Crystal Dahlquist dropped down a one-out bunt toward third base that scored Kendal Harper from third for the first run of the game. Dahlquist reached first on the play and Benet Higgs moved from second to third. Higgs and Dahlquist both scored one at-bat later when Jessica Tullos sent another bunt rolling toward the Baylor third baseman. Tullos moved to second on the play but was stranded when the next two SFA batters lined out and struck out, respectively.
Baylor answered with two runs on an RBI double to left-center by Brette Reagan in the bottom half of the inning. After the next batter fouled out behind third base, the Ladyjacks got out of the inning when catcher Kim Daley threw behind Reagan on a pickoff and caught her in a rundown between second and third.
Neither team scored in the fourth, and SFA missed a prime opportunity in the fifth, when Higgs was stranded on third base by a pair of strikeouts to end the inning. Baylor made that lost chance sting in the bottom half, when the Bears used 4 hits, including a home run, to score 3 runs and take the lead for the first time in the game, 5-3.
SFA's lone baserunner in the last two innings was a hit batsman who was later picked off at first base, and Baylor tacked on four more runs in the sixth inning to set the final score.
Freshman pitcher Ashley Wilburn took the loss for SFA. Wilburn started and went the distance, giving up nine earned on 13 Baylor hits. She posted three strikeouts.
Third baseman Briana Bishop was the only Ladyjack to record multiple hits in the game. She went 2-for-3 at the plate. Higgs, Tullos, Wilburn, Heather Hebert and Kendal Harper connected for one hit apiece. Dalquist and Tullos were each credited with an RBI.
The Ladyjacks are scheduled to resume play in the Getterman Classic at 6 p.m. Saturday, when they take on Southland Conference newcomer Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
-- SFA --
