BATON ROUGE — The LSU softball team, powered behind a 10-strikeout performance from junior Britni Sneed, cruised past Cornell, 8-0, on Thursday evening. The Tigers capitalized on five Big Red errors while stringing together 10 hits in the first round of the 2001 NCAA softball tournament at Tiger Park.
Sneed improved her record to 33-5 overall and moved her strikeout total to 357 for the season. Cornell managed just two singles and could not advance a runner past second base.
“We wanted to come out and play Tiger softball,” LSU head coach Yvette Girouard said. “It is good to get the first game out the way, because in the first game you always have jitters. We need to clean up a few mistakes, because we won’t win if we make those mistakes tomorrow.”
The Tigers (55-9) scored quickly after a two-out single by Tiger shortstop, Stephanie Hastings, in the first inning. The senior stole second base and a pair of throwing errors allowed Hastings to score the game’s first run, 1-0.
Hastings finished the game 2-for-2 with an RBI and two runs scored. She brings her team-leading hit mark to 76 for the season.
Cornell (36-18) committed two more errors allowed LSU to capture their second run in the second inning. Tiger designated player Erin Johnson scored in similar fashion. After stealing her second base of the season, a pair of throwing errors allowed Johnson to score and gave the Tigers a 2-0 lead.
LSU blew the game open in the third inning posting four runs on three hits in the frame. The big blow came off the bat of Johnson who laced a bases loaded single to plate a pair of runs and gave the Tigers a commanding 6-0 advantage.
After the Tigers posted two more runs in the sixth inning, the game was called due to the NCAA’s mercy rule.
LSU advances into the winners bracket and will play Friday evening at 7 p.m. against the winner of the Southern Mississippi and Cornell/Penn State who meet in an elimination game scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tonight.
Game 1 Quotes
Britni Sneed — P – “I was just really glad to play today. The week was long and it was good to finally get to regionals and play. Pretty much everything was working today. They had a couple of good hitters that were coming out and attacking. I was still able to throw a few balls out of the zone, it was a good day.”
Stephanie Hastings— SS – “We were just excited to get underway. I think that we are more relaxed than we have ever been and that’s very important to us. I think we’ve been up tight the past few years.”
Erin Johnson–DP- “I think that we were really confident and we played a good game. But, we were a little excited in the beginning and we need to clean up. We are just going to look forward to next game.”
No. 2 seed Arizona State and No. 3 seed UL-Lafayette each came back from 1-0 deficits to win 4-1 and 5-1, respectively, in the first two games of the NCAA Softball Regional here in Tiger Park. After LSU defeated Cornell, 8-0, Penn State eliminated the Big Red, 4-0, in the nightcap.
Game 4
Penn State Eliminates Cornell From NCAA Regional, 4-0
Penn State (33-27) 4, Cornell (36-18) 0
BATON ROUGE — Penn State took advantage of two Cornell errors to jump on top of Cornell early in the game and then pull away for a 4-0 victory, eliminating the Big Red from the NCAA Regional in Baton Rouge’s Tiger Park on Thursday.
Cornell, the Ivy League Champions, ended the 2001 season at 36-18, while Penn State (33-27) advanced to face No. 4 seeded Southern Miss in another elimination game on Friday at 1 p.m. The winner of that game will face LSU at 7 p.m. on Friday.
No. 3 seed UL-Lafayette and No. 2 seed Arizona State will meet at 4 p.m. in game 6 of the tournament on Friday at 4 p.m.
The Nittany Lions scored an unearned run in the bottom of the first when the error-prone Big Red committed a pair of miscues. Jennifer Tripken walked and advanced to second on failed pickoff attempt by Cornell catcher Melissa Cannon.
After a single by Kelley Galigher put runners on first and second with no outs, Cornell first baseman Kristen Hricenak caught a fly ball in foul territory and then committed a throwing error while trying to get Tripken out at third. The error allowed Tripken to score and gave Penn State at 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the second, a walk and a bunt single set up an RBI single by Tripken to put runners on first and third with one out. A double steal was successfully executed by the Nittany Lions to give them a 3-0 lead.
Tripken scored again in the bottom of the fifth on a bunt single, a stolen base and an RBI single by Allison Medellin.
Coronado Pitches ULL Past Southern Miss, 5-1
UL-Lafayette 5, Southern Miss 1
BATON ROUGE — Louisiana-Lafayette starting pitcher Melissa Coronado allowed only three hits and the Lady Cajuns scored five unanswered runs after falling behind 1-0 to advance in the NCAA Softball Regional winners’ bracket, 5-1, over Southern Miss on Thursday afternoon at Tiger Park.
Southern Miss (46-20) scored first in the top of the second when Heather Bell singled and Sarah Boyd was hit by a pitch. A fielder’s choice put runners on second and third with one out before Kristie Martin’s fielder’s choice sent Bell home from third when the throw home went astray.
Boyd was obstructed between second and third on the play, but was unable to receive an additional base because she did not continue toward home after the obstrution. After losing the potential 2-0 lead on the play, Southern Miss lost its momentum and only managed two hits over the next 5 2/3 innings.
Meanwhile, UL-Lafayette (50-8) answered with five unanswered runs including a solo home run by Jana Mower to leadoff the top of the second inning which tied the game at 1-1.
The Lady Cajuns put two more on the board in the bottom of the third inning when Jerie Alexander singled with one out and advanced to third on a pair of passed balls. After an intentional walk and a stole base by Alana Addision, Missy Martin doubled in both Alexander and Addision for a 3-1 lead.
ULL added single runs in the bottom of the fifth and sixth off Souther Miss starter Felicia Gonzales (29-10).
UL-Lafayette starter Melissa Coronado tied a school record with her 34th win of the season against seven losses.
The Lady Cajuns advanced to play No. 2 seed Arizona State at 4 p.m. on Friday in Game 6 of the NCAA Tournament. Southern Miss moved into Friday’s 1 p.m. game against tonight’s Game 4 loser.
NCAA REGIONAL
Game 3 Quotes
Stefni Whitton-Lotief
“I?m just glad to be here at this regional so close to home. Our fans are here and we performed very well in our first game. We worked extremely hard all season long to get here, and they just flat-out got it done today.
“Our defense was pretty uncharacteristic of us. I think they handled it well, we just had one bad inning.”
“Melissa had an awesome game today. That was a very good hitting lineup she faced. They are very, very well coached.”
“I am very pleased with the senior leadership this year. I can?t tell you how Many times this year that Jana has single handedly changed the momentum of a game. She?s a large part of the reason why we?ve had success this year.”
Missy Martin, RF
“We really talked about if a team jump out on us to get right back in it and don?t waste no time and just try to do the best we can.”
Jana Mower, 1B
“We?re all very confident in ourselves. Our defense struggled a little, but we came back, and got some hits.”
Melissa Coronado, P
“Our offense was awesome today.”
“In the beginning I wasn?t getting ahead as I should. As the game went on I got stronger and we went ahead and got stronger.”
“My change-up was working for me today which is really awesome. When you face good hitters you have to keep them off balance and make them take your pitch.”
Southern Miss Quotes
Gay McNutt, head coach
“I thought we were ready. After the first inning, I thought we showed character. We scored early like we had talked about doing, like we had wanted to, like we had been working on doing for most of the year. And after that we firm shut down.”
“To ULL?s credit they showed a lot of character, staying in there and making things happen. They kept playing the ball, stroking the ball. This is my fault. This is not these two young ladies? (Gonzalas and Peters) fault. Its not anybody else?s fault. The fault is right here. We didn?t stay ready the entire game, so that?s my fault.”
Kenya Peters, catcher
“We didn’t go the full seven innings. We shut down. We should have fought more. We beat ourselves. If we would have kept going and played Southern Miss ball and took care of what we could have taken care of, we would have gotten a better outcome. But we shut down, and we beat ourselves.”
Felicia Gonzalas, pitcher
“We just didn’t come out today as well as we should have. I guess we expected, I don’t know what we expected out of them. But we weren’t expecting enough out of ourselves to come out and play defense. I didn’t do as well as I should have. I guess my stuff just wasn’t working. I felt a little tired today after a couple innings. We should have come out harder.”
Four-Run Fourth Gives ASU 4-1 Win Over PSU
Arizona State 4, Penn State 1
BATON ROUGE — Arizona State sent nine batters to the plate and scored all four of its runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to take a 4-1 victory over No. 5 seed Penn State in the first game of the 2001 NCAA Softball Regional on Thursday at Baton Rouge’s Tiger Park.
The Nittany Lions fell to tonight’s elimination game where it will face the loser of the LSU-Cornell game at 7:30 p.m. CDT.
Penn State (33-27) scored its lone run in the top of the first when Erin Norton singled in Allison Medellin from third base.
After giving up a run and four hits in the first two innings, Arizona State starter Erica Beach (17-10) faced only one batter over the minimum over the final six innings to earn the complete-game victory.
Penn State starter Marisa Hanson (11-14) dominated the Sun Devils in the first three innings, retiring the first nine batters she faced.
However, ninth-ranked Arizona State exploded for four runs on five hits in the bottom of the fourth to blow the game open and steal the momentum from the Nittany Lions.
Missy Hixon singled down the left field line and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Nichole Thompson. After a foul ball out that advanced Hixon to third, Phelan Wright singled to center field, driving in Hixon.
Beach singled to put runner on first and second for Kirsten Voak who doubled down the left field line to give ASU a 2-1 lead.
Kristen Swetel doubled to center field to drive in Voak and Beach for a 4-1 lead.
Game 2 (PSU vs. ASU) Quotes)
Arizona State head coach, Linda Wells
(On being shutout through the first three innings) ? “Occasionally, we’ll go through our line-up and then try to figure things out. The trick is then to make an adjustment, which fortunately we were able to do. Once we started hitting we were able to bunch them and get our runs at one time.”
“I felt I knew the type of adjustments we had to make against that pitcher, I explained those, and I was pretty confident that we would make those adjustments. Now, it isn’t like it lacked concern because you are in a situation now where you only have so many innings left, and you can obviously hit the ball very well and very hard and hit the ball at people and make outs. We did that several times.”
“It isn’t that you don’t have concern when the other team is up and your no hit through three, but I am confident in my team that they will make adjustments when they are asked to make them. We are a good hitting team, so it is a matter of getting the balls in the holes and just finding the spot. I know that we are going to hit the ball hard.”
Arizona State winning pitcher, Erica Beach
“At first I was trying to rush it. I think I was putting too much effort into my beginning pitches and putting too much pressure on myself. Once I started to relax a little bit I just let everything take care of itself and had a little bit more fun on the mound.”
Arizona State second baseman, Missy Dixon
“As the lead off batter my job is to get on. I told myself I would do whatever I had to get on base. I went up there thinking positive, and I told myself I had to get on base.”
Arizona State designated player, Kristen Voak
“My first at bat was a little rough, but I got a chance to see a lot of pitches. When I got up there the second time it was time to come up with a hit. I was very confident having seen a lot of pitches before. I just pulled the trigger and got it.”
Penn State head coach, Robin Petrini
“ASU put those hits together in the fourth inning. That was the difference, they were able to put them together and we weren’t able to put them together, and we missed our early scoring opportunities.”
“When you look at the statistics, they did a lot of things with two outs. And that was how they did their rally. If you look at their bio’s, they had so many RBI’s and so many RBI’s with two outs. Then they have this batting average and this batting average with two outs. They seem to be a team that, when they are in a hole, that is when they explode out. They did enough and then settled back into their routine.”
“We warmed up another pitcher if we needed to, because I thought once they opened the doors, for our team, once we open the doors it’s a landslide. That was the difference for us today. We were never able to open the door when we had our early opportunities to.”
Penn State starting pitcher, Marisa Hanson
“We were hitting just as well, we had five hits and they had seven. We just didn’t put ours together like they did.”
(On the fourth inning) “They had already seen me. I’m sure there is an advantage once they go around and see what you’ve got and adjust. That’s what they did.”