April 28, 2013 - Saddled with a 5-16 record back on April 6, a Northern Athletics Conference tournament appearance did not appear to be in the cards for the Concordia Cougars. Yet the team will head to Milwaukee this Thursday to take part as the number five seed. The Cougars will go in as one of the hottest teams in the league; their 2-0 and 18-1 wins over Edgewood College as part of today's Senior Day make them 14-4 over the last three weeks.
The first game win was all about the pitching of freshman
Alicia Salata (Bartlett, IL/H.S.). Salata tossed her first shutout of the season, a seven-hitter. She worked out of jams in the first two innings, but her biggest challenge came in the fourth. An error and a hit put runners on third and second with one out. Jamie Spangler then lifted a fly ball to right. The runner on third tagged up, but a great relay from
Caitlin Richards (Chicago, IL/Mother McAuley) to
Sarah James (Riverside, IL/Riverside-Brookfield) to
Hannah Solyom (Lombard, IL/Walther Lutheran) was in time to record the out at the plate and keep the Eagles off the scoreboard.
Concordia scored its runs in the first and third innings.
Olivia Hires (Denver, CO/Bear Creek) led off the first with a line drive that went for a triple as the rightfielder missed on a diving catch
. Andrea Kelly (Elk Grove, CA/Laguna Creek) then ripped the first pitch to her to centerfield for an RBI single.
Hires also scored the run in the third. She singled to lead off and advanced to third on
Meghan Johnson's (Glendale Heights, IL/Glenbard West) single
. Jenni Jensen (Chicago, IL/Luther North) singled up the middle to make it a 2-0 game.
Salata had one more jam to escape as the Eagles put runners on second and third in the sixth. Again, the Eagles were denied as an grounder to third base ended the inning. The final numbers showed Edgewood stranding 11 runners on base.
Game two was a 180-degree reversal as Concordia put up a season-high for runs. Jensen's single inside the leftfield line started the Cougars with a 1-0 lead. Later in the inning, Salata hit a liner over the rightfielder's head for a two-run double. James added a two-run single on an 0-2 pitch to build the Cougars' lead to 5-0.
The second inning saw the Cougars amass 11 runs on seven hits for a 16-0 lead. Johnson was the story of the inning as she belted two homers and drove in five; she is believed to be the first Cougar softball player to ever homer twice in the same inning. Also in the inning, Salata powered out her second homer of the year, a two-run shot to centerfield. All in all, the Cougars sent 15 batters to the plate in the inning.
Edgewood broke the pitching staff's string of nine scoreless inning with a run in the third. Two talks and a bunt single loaded the bases with one out. Tiffani Pierce singled up the middle to score the run, but Kelly stopped the threat with a force at the plate and a strikeout.
Concordia closed out the scoring in the fourth. An error tacked on to Johnson's single scored one run, and
Allie Bochat's (Crystal Lake, IL/Crystal Lake South) single brought home Johnson.
The Cougars will take on fourth-seeded Concordia University Wisconsin Thursday afternoon at 2:00. The two Concordias split their doubleheader earlier this month.
