AMHERST, Ma.- The La Salle softball fought off elimination for the second straight day taking down second seed Saint Louis 5-4 on Thursday evening from Sortino Field.
La Salle used a four run fifth inning to help fuel a come-from-behind victory on day two of the Atlantic 10 Softball Championship.
Sophomore
Michelle Hagarty hit a two-out, two-run homer and the Explorers capitalized on a pair of Billiken errors to fuel the big fifth inning.
Junior
Mary Cate Scott threw 6.1 innings in relief to earn the victory and improve to 8-6 on the season. She recorded four strikeouts on the day will giving up only a single earned run.
"That was a lot of fun," added head coach
Ron Shoemaker. "It showed a lot of guts to play so poorly early give them a couple runs to a team seeded so much higher than us and bounce back. We scrapped; we played our roles and had a big homerun that turned it around by Michelle. That was a big game and win from beginning to end. "
La Salle jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first thanks to a two-out double from sophomore
Suzanne Swanicke. The catcher brought in Hagarty who had led off the inning by dropping a single to shallow right field.
The Billikens answered right back in the bottom half of the inning. They used four straight two-out hits to tie things up at 1-1. Scott came on with the bases loaded and two outs and was able to get La Salle out of the jam without further damage thanks to a groundout to third base.
Saint Louis added two runs in the second inning to grab a 3-1 lead. The Billikens capitalized on a pair of two out errors by the Explorers to score their runs.
The Explorers grabbed a 5-3 lead thanks to some two out hitting in the fifth inning. After junior
Kendra Heyer drew a walk Hagarty took a 3-1 pitch over the scoreboard in left field for a two-run shot. The homer was her fifth of the season. Senior Linnette Seidler and sophomore
Christina Bascara both reached on infield singles before Swanicke and freshman Valerie Pineior put the ball in play and reached on errors allowing Sielder and Bascara to score in the process.
"The errors were the game," stated Shoemaker. "We gave them two on errors and they gave us a couple more. It was the difference in the game. Michelle's home run was the difference maker and put them on their heels which are when you make those errors, when you are tight."
The Billikens wouldn't go away though, they answered with a run in the bottom half of the inning to cut the Explorers lead to just 5-4 heading into the sixth inning.
La Salle continues to try and navigate their way through the loser's bracket as they face off against top seeded Dayton in an elimination game at 2:30 tomorrow.
