by David Almeda (Staff Writer)
Playing on senior day, KSU’s softball team took the field Saturday with a chance to send their teammates off on a high note.
What resulted was two contests with completely opposite results, as the Owls (23-27, 12-12 A-Sun) split a doubleheader against East Tennessee State by taking a dominant, six inning 8-0 mercy rule win in game one and an 12-4 extra inning loss in game two.
“I thought we came out of the gate pretty good,” head coach Wes Holly Jr. said. “Had good pitching and good hitting. Jumped on them early and kind of stayed there both offensively and defensively, as well as pitching for the remainder of the first game. Second game, we started out well, got in a lot of trouble there at times, didn’t come through with some clutch hits. Obviously our pitching kind of slacked off a little bit in the seventh and eighth innings. That was actually the difference in the game.”
KSU began its first game of the day with a bang. With Taylor Denton on third with two outs in the first inning, Megan Veringa hit an RBI single to give the Owls a 1-0 lead. After Courtney Sutter singled, Kara Chambers knocked an RBI single to bring in Veringa and extend the Owls’ lead to two.
Senior Bianca Durant then topped off the inning with a three-run shot to right, giving KSU a comfortable 5-0 lead early.
After adding two more runs in the fourth, the Owls went into the bottom of the sixth with a 7-0 lead. In unusual fashion, KSU won the game in the sixth inning after Taylor Denton singled and took advantage of a four base error, rounding the bases and thereby enabling the mercy rule.
Senior Amanda Henderson dominated from the circle in game one, as she did not allow one ETSU baserunner through the first four innings. She finished with 10 strikeouts in six innings while allowing only one hit.
The Owls came out to another good start in game two, with an RBI double from Veringa that scored Sara Sikes, giving them a 1-0 lead in the first. The second inning saw Carly Van Auken double to score Chambers and Durant and extend the lead to three.
ETSU countered in the following frame with a two run home run to close the Owls’ lead to 3-2. In the seventh, with one out away from a second win, KSU gave up another two run shot, giving the Buccaneers a 4-3 advantage.
In the bottom of the frame, the Owls responded, tying the game with Van Auken’s second RBI double of the game, scoring Stephanie Phillips from first.
Unfortunately, the wheels began to fall off for KSU in extras, as ETSU lit up Owls pitching for eight runs to take a commanding 12-4 lead, and eventually the win.
“As a young pitcher being at this level, they’re going to have to learn to stay focused for the entire game,” Holly said. “That’s every pitch until the last pitch. We’re going to have to get better at that.”
The Owls will now finish their regular season against ETSU on Sunday at Bailey Park.
