 | Softball |
SIUE Softball SIUE Athletics | |
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 Lindsay Longfellow UMSL Boxscore Rockhurst Boxscore |
May 1, 2008 SIUE Opens GLVC Tourney With Win EAST PEORIA, Ill. -- On the same day Southern Illinois University Edwardsville softball learned it will be the host for next week's NCAA Regional, the Cougars successfully collected a pair of wins at the 2008 Great Lakes Valley Conference Championships. As the two-time defending GLVC champions, SIUE opened the 2008 postseason with a 3-0 win over Missouri-St. Louis and a 3-1 victory over Rockhurst. The Cougars, 43-9 and ranked No. 13 in the latest NFCA/NCAA Division II poll, will play UW-Parkside at 3 p.m. in the winner's bracket game. The winner of that game advances to the GLVC Tournament title game. SIUE Coach Sandy Montgomery and her team also learned Thursday that it will be home for the next leg of the postseason. SIUE was honored with the No. 1 seed Wednesday in the Great Lakes Region and then was given confirmation that the eight-team tournament will be at Cougar Field. The first round of the double-elimination tournament begins Wednesday. The tournament teams and game times are expected to be announced this weekend after play in the GLVC Tournament, the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) and West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) Tournament has completed. The defending national champions have now won 16 straight games heading into day two of the GLVC Tournament. In the tournament opener for the Cougars, Lindsay Longfellow provided the big hit with a two-run single in the fourth inning. Both SIUE and UMSL began the tournament with neither team recording a hit in the first three innings. SIUE changed that in the fourth. Ashley Price reached base on a one-out infield error by UMSL first baseman Carly Maddock. After Haylee Eubanks went in to pinch-run for Price, Nicole Beecher grabbed SIUE's first hit of the game with a single through the left side of the infield. Kaeleigh Rousey sacrificed Eubanks and Beecher over to second and third, setting up the two-run single up the middle for Longfellow. Price added an RBI single in the sixth, scoring Courtney Mall. SIUE pitcher Kaitlin Colosimo, named the GLVC's Pitcher of the Year for a second straight season, fanned six and gave up just two hits in the seven-inning game. Her record improved to 25-5. UMSL hurler Alyson DeFossett, 15-13, went five innings for the Tritons and struck out eight. In the second game of the day, SIUE jumped on Rockhurst starter Heather Robertson for three runs in the first inning. Mall singled, stole second and later scored on a sacrifice fly by Price. Kaeleigh Rousey provided a successful sacrifice bunt, which plated Lauren Zembruski. Longfellow later drove home Nicole Beecher with an RBI single. SIUE freshman Erika Taylor made the most of her first postseason experience. She scattered seven hits and fanned three. Taylor, now 12-4 overall, allowed an unearned run in the fifth when Jessi Harris reached on an infield error and later scored on a single by Hannah Luttenegger. NOTES: Mall tied the school record for walks in a season. Her two walks in game one Thursday put her at 39 for the season, tying the mark set by Shanna Waldo in 2005. -siue- |