2011

ECCC Lady Warriors tie for fifth place in nationals By Marty Stamper Appeal Sports Editor EC 12 Mercyhurst NE (Pa.) 0 to right by Danielle Burge.

second, and scored on a two-out single

A 10-run second inning carried EO Meanwhile, Kankakee's Jenna Slifer to an easy 4 1/2-inning run-rule win had a perfect game through three over the Saints in the Lady Warriors' innings before EC's Lauren Nicholas tournament opener on Thursday. lined a one-out single to left field in the EO took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of bottom of the fourth. Kasie Buckley the first inning as SummerAlexander's reached on an error on 8: ground ball sacrifice fly scored Abbie Joiner, who with Nicholas going to third. Slifer got had led off with a walk and moved up Summer Alexander and Taylor Bailey on a single by Lauren Nicholas. on ground balls to get out out of the In the big second inning, Chelsea inning unscathed. Jones had an RBI-single to start the In the fifth, Kelsi Watson singled to scoring and a two-run single to end the center field and Abbie Joinerwas hit by frame. In between, Nicholas had an a pitch, but Nicholas flew out to end RBI-double, Alexander had a two-run that threat. single to center field, and Brittany In their final at-bat, the Lady Pounders ripped a two-run triple to Warriors got a leadoff infield single right field. from Haylee Roberts. After Watson That was way more than enough sacrificed courtesy runner Haelie Allen runs for Taylor Bailey as to second, Lauren Huber struck out she threw just 58 pitches Chelsea Jones and Joiner to end the - 47 of which were game. strikes.Baileystruckout EO, 35-14, had only three hits with six and allowed four hits Nicholas, Roberts, and Watson each ~- - all singles- and no getting a single. walks in upping her Bailey (30-9) took the loss, allowing record to 30-8. eight hits. She struck out five with no In the fourth. Kelsi Taylor walks. Watson singled and Bailey Slifer got the win, allowing all three scored on a two-out sin- hits in six innings. She struck out three gle byNicholas to extend the lead to 12- and walked one. 0. Huber fanned two in her inning of EO, 35-13, finished with 13 hits. relief for Kankakee, 47-9. Nicholas had two singles and a double EC 12 in driving in two runs. Joiner, Sauk Valley (ill.) 11 Alexander, Watson, and Jones each Kasie Buckley's RBI-single to left had two singles with Alexander having field in the bottom of the ninth scored three RBI and Jones getting two. Abbie Joiner with the winning run in Bailey Patt took the loss for Friday morning's game. Mercyhurst North East, 27-17, allowing Joiner had drawn a leadoffwalk and 11 runs on seven hits and one walk in 1 moved up to second on a sacrifice by 1/3 innings. Lauren Nicholas. Kankakee (ill.) 1 EO battled back from a 10-3 deficit EC 0 after four innings to take the nine- Second-seeded Kankakee made a inning win. first-inning run stand up in Thursday's After EC went up 3-0 in the bottom of second game, dropping EO into the los- the second, Sauk Valley scored three ers' bracket. runs in the top of the third and seven in Kelsey Gass led off the top of th~ the fourth to bold a 10-3 advantage. first with a single to right field, stole EC ~®.r.e.clonce in the fifth and once

It took losses to the No. 2 and No. 3 teams in the NJCAADivision II Softball National Championship to knock the East Central Community College Lady Warriors out of the tournament last week. EO went 3-2 in the 16-team, double– elimnation event in Normal, ill. The Lady Warriors opened with a 12-0 run-rule win over Mercyhurst North East (Pa.) on Thursday. After losing a 1-0 heartbreaker to Kankakee (Ill.) in their second game on Thursday, the Lady Warriors rallied for a 12-11 win over Sauk Valley (ill.) on Friday and a 1-0 shutout of Kirkwood (Iowa) before being eliminated with a 2-0 loss to eventual tournament runner-up Owens (Ohio) in Friday's third game. Kankakee finished third. EO tied with Pasco-Hernando of New Port Richey, Fla., for fifth place. The LadyWarriors finished 37-15. "We fee) like we had a ..-------..

good tournament," said EC coach Scott Hill. "We certainlygot beat by qual– ity opponents. I don't think we have anything to be too terribly disappoint– ed with. We played some mighty good teams there. "To get a 1-0 win over

Scott Hill

Kirkwood says a lot about the resiliency of our young ladies, espe– cially our pitching. Taylor (Bailey) did a heck-of-a job for us to shut out a real good team like that." Bailey was named to the all-tourna– ment team after throwing every pitch - some 464 in the five games - for the Lady Warriors. She threw 311 in Friday's three games, including 137 against Sauk Valley to start the day. "Even the games we lost, she defi– nitely gave us a chance to win those," Hill said. "We just couldn't quite get the offense going like we wanted to."

Jones had two of EC's eight hits. Summer Alexander had a solo homer, while Buckley had a single and two RBI. Taylor Bailey (31-9) threw 137 pitch– es- 100 of which were strikes- to gtt the win. She struck out four, walked two, and allowed 15 hits. Sophia Aponte had two doubles and Continued on 6B... See ECCC...

in the sixth to close to within 10-5. The Skyhawks added another run in the top of the seventh to go up 11-5, but the Lady Warriors, 36-14, forced extra innings with six runs in the bottom of the seventh. Big hits for EO in the seventh were a two-run singles by Chelsea Jones and Brittany Pounders along with three walks.