April 27, 2007

Game 1 Box Score
Game 2 Box Score

Indiana, Pa. - The Rock's bid for berths in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and/or NCAA Division II Mid-Atlantic Regional tournaments were dealt a pair of setbacks Friday when SRU dropped both ends of a PSAC-Western Division doubleheader at Indiana U. of Pa.

Indiana (20-25, 9-9) scored a run in the bottom of the seventh inning to win the opening game by a 2-1 score, then rode a seven-run third inning to an 11-5 win in Game 2.

The losses dropped SRU's overall record to 26-20 and its PSAC-West mark to 8-10.

The Rock must now sweep a 1 p.m. Sunday (note change in date) twinbill from defending NCAA Division II national champion and current No. 1-ranked Lock Haven (37-2, 15-1) and get help from its "friends" in order to earn a berth in the conference playoffs.

The top three teams in the PSAC-West standings at the end of regular-season play will earn berths in the conference tournament; SRU is now in fifth place in the PSAC-West standings.

The Rock trails both California U. of Pa. (12-14, 9-7) and Edinboro (16-18, 9-7) by three games in the loss column. Both of those teams have four more division games to play this season.

SRU is also one game behind Indiana, which has only a twinbill with Edinboro left to play.

SRU is in slightly better shape in its quest for a regional tournament berth than in its quest for a conference tournament berth.

SRU was ranked sixth in this week's regional poll. Edinboro is ranked ninth and neither California nor Indiana are ranked in the top 10 in that same poll. The top eight teams in the final poll of the season will earn berths in the regional tournament.

Friday's games

A pair of wasted opportunities in Friday's first game and Indiana's big inning in the second game landed a 1-2 punch to The Rock's playoff hopes.

With the score tied at 1-1 in Game 1, SRU had runners on second and third bases with only one out in the seventh. A line-drive out and a foul popup left those runners stranded.

Four innings earlier, The Rock also had runners on second and third bases with two outs thanks to a double by Meghan McHenry, but the Green and White could not push the potential runs across the plate.

Indiana made The Rock pay for those wasted opportunities by scoring the winning run on a pair of singles and a sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the seventh inning.

The Rock held a 3-1 lead after two and a half innings of Game 2, only to see Indiana explode for seven runs on seven hits in the bottom of the third.

The Rock had seven hits in Game 1, but got its only run of the game in the sixth inning when Stacey Rhoades led off with a double and scored one out later on an RBI double by Alicia Dixon.

Seven different Rock players had a hit each in Game 1.

SRU collected nine hits in Game 2, paced by a 4-for-4 effort by Courtney Vincent and a three-RBI game for McHenry.

McHenry's two-run home run in the top of the first inning gave SRU a quick lead, while her third-inning sacrifice fly pushed The Rock lead to 3-1.

Lisa Getgen hit a solo home run to lead off the fourth frame to trim the deficit to 8-4 and then doubled and scored SRU's final run on an RBI single by Kayla Ray in the sixth inning.

Ray's hit cut the Indiana lead to 10-5.

Courtney Conron was tagged with the loss in both games and saw her season record fall to 11-9.

Conron yielded two earned runs on 10 hits, struck out five and walked one in the first game and allowed 10 earned runs on 11 hits. struck out four and walked two in four innings in Game 2.