Emporia State softball knocks out top-seeded Mankato, 6-0; Hornet baseball reaches championship game
Hornets are highest-seeded team left in softball Regional
By Jesse Newell
Saturday, May 12, 2007
NORTH MANKATO, Minn. — All it took was one swing from Laura Pfautsch to get the Emporia State softball team's offense out of its funk.
The senior's RBI single in the fifth inning gave the Hornets their first run — and also opened the floodgates — as ESU went on for a 6-0 victory over top-seeded Minnesota-Mankato.
The Mavericks (45-15), who earned the right to host the Regional with the No. 1 seed, were eliminated with their second loss.
After 4 1/2 scoreless innings, ESU's Morgan Viola led off the bottom of the fifth with a single to right.
Courtney Stevens executed a well-placed sacrifice bunt to move Viola to second, then Pfautsch connected on the liner to left.
Viola was waved around third base and managed to slide in just under a high throw at home from Cindy Smith.
The momentum was contagious.
Chelsea McClernon picked on the next pitch, sending a no-doubt homer into a fierce wind blowing in from right to make it 3-0.
The Hornets tacked on three more in the sixth. Megan Davison — who broke the MIAA record for hits with a single in the fourth — started it off with a single, and Jennifer Dace followed with a hit up the middle.
Lacey Pendry moved the runners with a groundout, and Viola posted an RBI with her third hit of the day.
Stevens contributed an RBI groundout, and Viola later scored after Pfautsch's chopper to third was mishandled by MSU-Mankato's Ashley Jay.
The runs would be more than enough insurance for ESU's Samantha Sheeley, who pitched a complete-game shutout, striking out 11. She allowed just three hits and walked none.
ESU scored all six runs off Maverick starter Samantha Rohr, who was the Most Outstanding Player in the North Central Conference. She came into the day with a 1.76 earned-run average.
Viola went 3-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI, while Davison also added two hits.
The Hornets (49-10) advance to play Southwest Minnesota State at 1 p.m. Sunday. ESU lost to the Mustangs, 2-1, in 11 innings on Friday.
If ESU wins, it will play Nebraska-Omaha, which advanced to the championship game with a 5-1 victory over Southwest Minnesota on Saturday.
In the first game of the day, Courtney Reed led the ESU, pitching a one-hit shutout as the Hornets defeated Missouri Western, 4-0, in the losers' bracket of the North Central Regional.
Reed (28-4) struck out 11 and walked just two.
ESU broke through in the top of the third inning, as Chelsea McClernon walked and Jessie Wiard added an infield single. After a walk to April Huddleston, Megan Davison was hit in the back with the bases loaded to force in a run.
Jennifer Dace followed with a single off the wall in left-center, driving in Wiard and Huddleston to make it 3-0.
Davison scored the other ESU run in the fifth, walking with one out and later scoring on a single up the middle by Morgan Viola.
Wiard went 2-for-4 with a run scored, while Davison reached base in all four of her plate appearances with three walks and a hit-by-pitch.
Lindsey Predovich took the loss, giving up three earned runs in 2 1/3 innings.
The Hornets also defeated the Griffons twice last Saturday in the MIAA Tournament.
The Hornet baseball team beat Northwest Missouri State, 8-1, on Saturday night. That advances ESU to the championship of the MIAA Tournament on Sunday.
ESU lost, 16-6, to Central Missouri earlier Saturday in the second round of the MIAA Tournament in Warrensburg, Mo.
The Mules scored eight runs in the sixth inning to enforce the run rule.