SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Coach Ron Faubion’s LadyStorm softballers picked up three key regional wins and dropped a pair to make it 3-2 in the St. Mary’s tournament over the weekend.
After a sweep on Friday’s opening day, the Storm rallied to knock off Texas Woman’s University 5-1 in Saturday’s first game.
Incarnate Word University, leaving the Lone Star for NCAA Division I, posted an 8-1 win Saturday and host St. Mary’s was an 8-3 winner in Sunday’s final game.
Coach Faubion said, “We had three really good wins before we started making mistakes and failing to execute when we had the opportunities. We had some excellent defensive plays and we also had some lapses.
“We lost to a pair of really good pitchers. Incarnate Word has already declared for Division 1 and St. Mary’s is picked at the top of the Heartland Conference.
“There were some good things and some things we need to correct. The problem is we don’t have much time to correct things with our tournament opening Friday at the Durant Multi-Sports Complex. “We left way too many runners on base and we still hurt ourselves with walks and errors. There’s no shortcut here, we just have to work this out in games.
“We have six games Friday, Saturday and Sunday in our Southeastern Regional Invitational and these are all key games for us in the ratings. St. Mary’s had tremendous crowds for their games and that makes a huge difference.
“We’re anxious to play for our home fans and hoping we have a great turnout this weekend.”
LadyStorm sophomore Whitney Hamilton was named to the All-Tournament Team. She had one home run, one double, seven runs batted in and drove in the winning run in SE’s three victories.
St. Mary’s Tournament
LadyStorm 5 - Texas Woman’s 1:
Mindy McElroy pitched the first five innings and gave way to Jacee Bennett after walking the first batter in the sixth.
Bennett threw nine pitches and finished the inning with a strikeout, plus a strikeout and throw-out of a would-be base stealer.
McElroy returned after Bennett walked the first two in the seventh and completed the game with Bennett picking up the win.
TWU took a 1-0 lead on a solo homer to lead off the fifth and SE stormed back with five in the bottom half.
The one-out rally started with a walk to Darrian Williams and an RBI-double by Courtney Moore. Hamilton doubled home pinch-runner Courtney Riddle. Lauren Renneker reached on an error at shortstop, Laramie Beal’s infield out plated a run and shortstop Lacie Cook scored the fifth run of the inning on a throwing error by the pitcher.
McElroy was one for one with a triple for the Storm. Moore was two for two with a double, a walk and one RBI.
Incarnate Word 8 - LadyStorm 1:
An error on the first batter led to a pair of runs for the Cardinals and Southeastern never got back into the game.
IWU scored two in the second and added four in the seventh with the help of three SE errors.
Southeastern picked up its lone run when Riddle led off the seventh with a walk, Rachel Jones singled, Brittany Wilson legged out an infield single and McElroy delivered the run with a sacrifice fly to center field.
Riddle led the way with two for two and scored the only run for the Storm. Wilson was two for three.
An error and a pair of walks hurt starter Shayna Milam, who took the loss with Jones and Bennett in relief.
St. Mary’s 8 - LadyStorm 3:
The Rattlers batted around in each of the first two innings, scoring three in the first and four in the second.
Bennett came on in relief of McElroy and limited St. Mary’s to three runs the rest of the way. The early damage was too much to overcome, however, as the Storm fell to 3-2 on the trip.
After the second inning, the Storm topped the Rattlers 3-1, but the game still went into the loss column.
Southeastern picked up a pair in the fourth on a fielder’s choice by Cook and a single by Jessica Simmons. The rally was aided by three walks.
SE’s final run came in the fifth when Williams led off with a double to left-center and scored on a single by Riddle.
Simmons was two for four to collect half of SE’s four hits.
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