Stephen F. Austin Eliminates Nicholls from Southland Tournament
SAN MARCOS, Texas - Regular
season co-champions and No. 1 seed Stephen F. Austin staved off elimination
defeating the No. 6 seed Nicholls, 8-4 in the 2010 Southland Conference
Softball Tournament in San Marcos, Texas.
Up
5-4 in the bottom of the fourth inning, first-team all-conference pitcher
junior Monika Covington entered the game to quiet a hot-hitting Colonels squad.
Covington pitched 3.2 innings picking up her second save of the season allowing
only three hits with four strikeouts.
Stephen
F. Austin struck first as senior Briana Bishop gave the Ladyjacks a 2-0 lead in
the top of the first inning with her team-leading 11th home run of the season.
Nicholls
got on the board in the bottom of the first inning (2-1) with a sac fly by
senior Audrey Wood driving in sophomore Megan Gaspard. Freshman Ashton Bennett tied
the game, 2-2 after driving in her 16th RBI of the season on a sacrifice fly to
deep center field scoring sophomore Kayla Watterson. Freshman Katie Holmes later
gave the Colonels the lead, 3-2 on a hit-and-run ground out to the shortstop scoring
senior Lyndsay Mesh.
With
the bases loaded in the top of the fourth inning, Stephen F. Austin sophomore
Jessica Arana hit her first triple of the season clearing the bases to give the
Ladyjacks a 5-3 lead after four and half innings.
In
the bottom of the fourth inning, Wood drove in her second RBI of the game and
team-leading 31st of the season, scoring Gaspard to get back to within one run,
5-4.
Southland
player of the year, SFA senior Kendal Harper blasted her seventh home run of
the season to deep center field to give the Ladyjacks an insurance run for a
6-4 lead in the sixth inning.
Stephen
F. Austin advances to play the winner of game six between No. 3 seed UT
Arlington and No. 5 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Game
six between the Mavs and Islanders is scheduled for a 9 p.m. start.
Live
stats as well as streaming video and audio are available on SLC NOW on the
Southland Conference web site at www.southland.org.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Stephen F. Austin Head Coach - Gay McNutt
(On today's win)
"It
feels much better to get a win under our belt. Now we're starting to play like
our Jacks team is capable. We had a rough outing yesterday but this feels much
better today. We made the decision today to bring Covington in; she's our
number one, she's our go-to so we feel much better about today."
Stephen F. Austin junior pitcher - Monika
Covington (On today's pitching performance)
"I just knew that my job was to go in there and hold them
off so we could pull out some more runs and get a win out there."
Nicholls Head Coach - Jenny Parsons (On today's loss)
"They hit the ball wall, and we did too, but we made some
mistakes at crucial times. We were in the game the whole way and I thought we
had a chance until the 7th inning to win it. Stephen F. Austin is a
good hitting team, but I'm proud of how my team has played all year long. We
didn't finish where we wanted to finish, but we made the tournament and next
year hopefully we'll win it."