BROOKLYN, N.Y. (May 10, 2008) – Ayzsha Ervin's pinch-hit RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning handed the No. 3 Saint Francis softball team a tough 4-3 loss at the hands of No. 1 seed Long Island in the second round of the Northeast Conference Softball Tournament on Saturday evening.
The Red Flash had the perennial NEC power on it's heals for a good part of the game, but Ervin came through in the clutch with the bases loaded and two outs. She stroked a 2-2 pitch into right field to end the game. It was just the fourth RBI of the season for Ervin.
Saint Francis will now face No. 2 Robert Morris in a re-match of the teams' first round game at 10 a.m. on Sunday. The Red Flash defeated the Colonials 4-1 in Saturday's first game. Long Island will await the winner of that game in a 12:30 p.m. match-up for the conference title. The Red Flash/Colonials winner will need to beat the Blackbirds twice to gain the NEC's automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
Ervin's single spoiled another gutsy effort on the mound by junior Laura Caldwell (Bellefonte, Pa. / Bellefonte). The all-NEC Second Team hurler ran into trouble when Mariesha Marker stroked a one-out double into right-centerfield. Jessie DePippo walked and Vanessa Mejia was hit by a pitch to load the bases with two outs.
Sophomore Kelly Cortese (Coatesville, Pa. / Bishop Shanahan) and junior Kelly Slingwine (Gibsonia, Pa. / Pine Richland) had two hits each for the Red Flash. Junior Kara Stroup (Valencia, Pa. / Mars) hit her team-best 10th home run of the year.
Long Island got on the board in the first inning following a leadoff double from Lauren Kemp. DePippo singled up the middle to make it 1-0, and then came around to score on a pair of Saint Francis throwing errors.
After threatening, but coming up empty, each of the first two innings, the Red Flash broke through in the third inning on a two-run home run by Stroup. Cortese slapped a triple over the head of left-fielder, and scored on Stroup's 10th round-tripper of the year to tie the game at 2-2. Stroup moved into sole possession of second place on SFU's single-season home runs list. It also moved her into a tie for third place on the school's single-season RBIs list with 39.
Kemp led off the bottom of the third inning with a dribbler in front of the plate that she beat out for a single. She moved to second on a ground out, and then went to third on a single by DePippo. With runners on the corners and just one out, Caldwell induced a pair of flyouts to escape the jam.
NEC Pitcher-of-the-Year Blair Porter replaced starter Jenny Giles to start the fourth inning after she surrendered the two-run homer in the third.
Cortese got to Porter and sparked more offense for Saint Francis in the top of the fifth inning. She stroked her second triple of the game to the fence in right-centerfield, and came in to score on an RBI single by Slingwine to give the Red Flash a 3-2 lead. Cortese tied an NEC Tournament record with two triples in a game, becoming the sixth place to do so.
Back-to-back one-out singles by Kemp and Mariesha Marker put SFU in a jam in the bottom of the fifth inning. Celina Castillo belted a shot that one-hopped to the fence for an RBI double to tie the game at 3-3. But Caldwell got a lazy popout to end the inning without any further damage.
Caldwell tossed 13.2 innings on the day, breaking an 18-year-old single-season school record for innings pitched in the process. Lexie Chamberlain pitched 194.0 innings in 1990. Caldwell now sits at 202.0 in 2008.
