Lehigh University
No. 4 Bucknell
Lehigh rallies past Bucknell, stays alive in title chase
5/1/2005 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Bethlehem, PA – Trailing by two after three innings the Mountain Hawks offense exploded for 10 runs in the final four frames as Lehigh rallied to beat Bucknell 10-5 Sunday evening in game five of the 2005 Patriot League Tournament at Kaufman Field. The Mountain Hawks avenged a loss earlier in the day to the Bison, Lehigh’s first against a Patriot League opponent this season, as they improve to 37-8 on the season and advance to Monday’s championship round against Army.
The Bison took an early 2-0 lead in game five, in which the loser’s season would come to an end, but Lehigh battled back putting up a four spot in the top of the fourth inning. Sophomore Julie Sterrett finally got the Mountain Hawk offense going with a two run double off of Bison starter Christie Wiest, who held Lehigh in check earlier in the day. The Mountain Hawks would plate two more in the fourth, on RBI singles from Kate Marvel and Taryn Hanley and scored two more in the fifth when Sterrett singled and Mendy Martin tripled.
Lehigh would increase its lead in the sixth on another RBI hit from Sterrett and a triple from Martin. Kate Arico took full advantage of the run support, allowing five runs on seven hits with three strikeouts to improve to 7-2 on the year and eliminate the Bison.
It was an uphill climb all day Sunday for Lehigh, who dropped its opener to the Bucknell by a 6-1 score. Heather Hamasaki was roughed up for four runs in two and two-thirds innings and Wiest held the Mountain Hawks to just a run on six singles.
“The law of averages finally caught up with us today,” said head coach Fran Troyan. “You have to give credit to Bucknell, they played a great game.”
With the double elimination format Lehigh took on Colgate in an elimination game. The Mountain Hawks got three timely singles and Emily Ling took care of the rest tossing a five hit shutout while striking out six to become the Patriot League’s career strikeout leader in Lehigh’s 4-0 victory. Whitney Schenbeck was 3-for-4 against the Raiders with a pair of RBI. In three games Sunday Schenbeck was 6-for-10 with 2 RBI and four runs scored.
“We had a long layoff because of the weather so we had three games to get some good at-bats in,” Troyan said. “Now we have to prepare to come out and play well tomorrow and I think we will do just that.”
Army advanced to the championship round with a 4-3 come from behind victory over Colgate in game one; and then an 11-1 thrashing of Bucknell in game four of the tournament.
The championship round between Lehigh and Army will get underway at 1:00 on Monday from Lehigh’s Kaufman Field. The Black Knights need just one win to claim the Patriot League championship, while the Mountain Hawks will need two victories to take the title. If Lehigh wins the first game a second game will be played immediately afterwards. All of Lehigh’s tournament games can be heard on the Lehigh website at lehighsports.com with streaming provided by Yahoo! Sports.
