Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 by Benny Benton
WILSON, N.C. – Despite receiving one of the best pitching performances of Liz White's career, the Barton College softball team suffered a heartbreaking 3-2 11-inning loss to Pfeiffer University in the first half of a Conference Carolinas doubleheader, followed by a painful 10-0 five-inning defeat in the nightcap at Jeffries Field.
The sweep moved the Falcons (16-13, 5-1) into a tie for first place in the league and left the Lady Bulldogs (6-16, 0-8) still searching for their first conference win.
White, a junior from Windsor, N.C., worked all 11 innings of the thrilling opener, giving up just three hits and one earned run to the highest scoring team in the league. White (4-7) recorded 13 strikeouts in the game, matching a career high.
However, Pfeiffer's Sam Jarmusch (5-4) also had an outstanding day, limiting the Lady Bulldogs to just five hits and no earned runs while working all 11 innings as well. Jarmusch did not walk a batter and struck out five.
Starting the 11th with Rebecca Foil placed on second base under the international tiebreaker format, the Falcons manufactured the game-winning run without the benefit of a hit. Emma Tuttle led off the frame with a grounder to short on which the only play was to first base, allowing Foil to advance to third. Sadie Saine then lifted a fly ball to center field deep enough for Foil to tag and score on the sacrifice fly.
Barton advanced its tiebreaker runner to third with two outs in the bottom of the 11th, but Jarmusch got a fly ball to center to end the game.
The contest reached the 11th after both sides gave away a run in the 10th. After Pfeiffer sacrificed its tiebreaker runner to third to begin the inning, White struck out the next batter and had an 0-2 count on Foil when she surrendered her only wild pitch of the afternoon over the head of the catcher, allowing Corinne Auger to score the go-ahead run.
Jarmusch had things well in hand in the bottom of the 10th after getting the first two Barton batters out without allowing the tiebreaker runner, Lindsey Sharpe, to reach third. She then got a line drive off the bat of Donna Nimmo directly at the left fielder that would have been the final out of the game. However, the ball glanced off the glove of Jessica Jackson, who had just moved there from first base to start the inning, allowing Sharpe to tie the game back at 2-2.
Both sides managed just one run during regulation play. Barton scored first in the fourth inning after Rachel Jordan singled to right and moved to second when the throw back into the infield sailed all the way off the field on the third base side. White then helped her own cause with a single down the right field line, driving in Jordan with the unearned run to put BC up 1-0.
Pfeiffer, which had not had a base runner since the first inning off White, started the top of the fifth with a leadoff single from Saine. Two batters later, Chandler Walker walked, moving Saine into scoring position. White struck out Pfeiffer's cleanup hitter, Julie Bullington, for a big second out of the inning, but Jaclyn Boever was able to pull an 0-1 offering from White through the left side for a base hit, driving in Saine with the game-tying run.
That sixth-inning single from Boever was the last hit of the contest for either side as White and Jarmusch dominated over the offenses.
Jordan went 2-for-4 in the contest for Barton, the only player for either team with multiple hits in the game.
Pfeiffer had no trouble scoring in the nightcap, however. The Falcons quickly made the second contest anticlimactic with a seven-hit, seven-run second inning off Barton starter Ashlyn Reagan (0-9). Despite giving up an RBI single to Khristin Isley, Reagan had a chance to get out of the inning with minimal damage, but Saine delivered a two-out, two-run double down the right field line that opened the flood gates.
Jackson followed with an RBI single, and Walker singled back up the middle to put a pair of runners on base for Bullington, who hammered a 1-2 pitch over the fence down the left field line, her third home run of the season.
The Falcons added a single run in the fourth on an RBI single by Jackson, then tacked on two more runs in the fourth on Isley's second RBI single of the game and a two-out fielding error by Barton.
The Lady Bulldogs had their best opportunity to score off Pfeiffer starter Sydney Poole (7-3) in the first inning following singles by Taylor Bowden and Betsy Braswell, but Poole got a line drive to short to end the inning.
Poole did not allow another baserunner in the game, retiring the next nine batters in a row before giving way to reliever Kristin Durant in the fifth and final inning. Poole did not walk a batter and struck out two.
Barton will continue a 14-game homestand with a non-conference doubleheader against Chowan University on Wednesday.
