Tucson,
AZ – Lehigh was paired up with the No. 3 seed
Arizona in their 2005 NCAA Regional and the Wildcats showed why they are one of the nation’s top teams on Friday night. A trio of Wildcat pitchers held Lehigh without a hit in
Arizona’s 12-0, five inning win at Hillenbrand Stadium. The Wildcats ripped 10 hits including three home runs as they improve to 40-10 and move on to face
Oklahoma State in the winners bracket. Lehigh will take on
Princeton in an elimination game on Saturday.
Offensively, the Wildcats poured it on from the very beginning. A single and two walks off senior starter Emily Ling loaded the bases, before Jackie Coburn put U of A up 2-0 with an RBI single to right field. Shelly Schultz followed up with a three-run homer to dead centerfield and the Wildcats led 5-0 before the Mountain Hawks could record an out.
The Wildcats tacked on two more runs in the second and one more in the third. In the fourth inning Arizona got a pair of two-run home runs from Callista Balko and Caitlin Lowe off of sophomore Heather Hamasaki to put the game out of reach.
Lowe was 4-for-4 with four runs scored, while Coburn was 2-for-2 with five runs batted in.
Arizona pitchers retired the first 14 batters they faced. Alicia Hollowell struck out five in the first two innings, Leslie Wolfe followed with two perfect frames and then Taryne Mowatt came within one out of a perfect game before hitting Lauren Haney to give the Mountain Hawks their only baserunner. The game was halted after four and a half innings due to the eight run rule. Wolfe was credited with the win, while Ling took the loss and fell to 20-6 on the season.
“We hadn’t played a game since May 9th and we were a little rusty,” said Lehigh head coach Fran Troyan after the game. “You simply can not give a team like Arizona those kinds of opportunities early.”
Senior second baseman Jessica Young looked forward to a chance for redemption on Saturday.
"We wanted to come in here and show them that we could fight.," Young said. "We look at tomorrow as if it's a whole new day and we look forward to coming out and giving our all."
Lehigh will now face off against Princeton in an elimination game Saturday at approximately 4:00 local time (7:00 pm EDT). That game will follow the winner’s bracket game between Arizona and Oklahoma State. If the Mountain Hawks win and stay alive, they will face the loser of game three at approximately 6:30 MST on Saturday night. As always, all of Lehigh’s NCAA Tournament games can be heard live on the Lehigh website at lehighsports.com. Pregame coverage for the Princeton game gets underway at 6:45 pm EDT.
Photos (c) 2005, Patti Ota.
