April 19, 2007

Game 1 Box Score
Game 2 Box Score

Slippery Rock, Pa. - When it was all said and done Thursday afternoon, The Rock and visiting Mercyhurst played to a stalemate in their non-conference twinbill.

The Rock rode a two-RBI game by Jessica Kortz to a 6-3 win in Game 1 before Mercyhurst came back to win Game 2 by the same 6-3 score.

The Game 2 loss snapped a season-best five-game win streak for The Rock, which will take a 19-17 record into Friday's 2:30 p.m. doubleheader at Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division rival Clarion.

If there's any consolation to be taken from the loss, it is that Mercyhurst (18-15) is ranked seventh in this week's NCAA Division II Great Lakes Regional ranking.

The Rock, meanwhile, is ranked ninth in the latest Division II Mid-Atlantic Regional poll.

The top eight teams in the final regular-season will earn berths in regional competition.

Game 1

The Rock took full advantage of a passed ball and fielding error on the part of Mercyhurst to score two unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning to take an early 2-0 lead.

Mercyhurst cut the deficit in half with a run in the top of the second and took a 3-2 lead with two runs in the top of the third before The Rock plated a pair of tallies in each of the fourth and sixth frames to record the win.

The fourth-inning runs scored on a pair of ground outs, while a two-run home run by Kortz -- her seventh HR of the season -- added insurance tallies.

Kortz's roundtripper and a double by Meghan McHenry headlined The Rock's five-hit attack in Game 1.

Lisa Getgen scattered eight hits, allowed three earned runs and struck out in a seven-inning complete-game pitching effort for SRU.

Game 2

Mercyhurst scored two runs in the top of the first inning of Thursday's second game and never trailed thereafter. But the Lakers needed a four-run fift-inning uprising to record the win.

Down 2-0, The Rock trimmed the margin in half with a single run in the bottom of the first when a Mercyhurst mishandled a two-out ground ball by Kortz.

A solo home run by Stacey Rhoades -- her school-record 12th of the season -- then tied the score at 2-2 in the bottom of the third.

After Mercyhurst erupted for four runs in the fifth frame, SRU got its final run on an RBI single by Kayla Ray in the bottom of the sixth.

Sheree Horvath, the second of four pitchers used by Rock head coach Vashion Johnson, was tagged with the loss after she allowed four earned runs on six hits and struck out one in three innings of work.

Rock starting pitcher Courtney Conron yielded two earned runs on two hits and struck out one in the first two innings; Lkz Pittman struck out one and walked one in one inning of work and Getgen pitched the final hitless and scoreless inning.

SRU, after visiting Clarion on Friday, will host PSAC-West rival California U. of Pa. in a 1 p.m. twinbill Saturday.