By: William Burns, Sports Editor
As panic swept the nation over the last week, the Saint Leo Softball team was still taking care of business in an authoritative way. Holding a 23-win, 7 loss record, the Saint Leo Softball team was ranked eighth in the division, and had no intention of slowing down at all. The Lady Lions held a 5-4 record in conference and an excellent home record of 13-2. Just before the Coronavirus shut down all spring sports season at the college level, the Lady Lions were putting in work over spring break, sweeping two double header game at home.
The first double header was on March 10, versus the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs. The Bulldogs came into the game with a 9-8 record but were no match for the hungry Lions. The first game started off hot, with lots of offense. Ten runs were scored in the first two innings. Both teams scored three in the first inning, with the Bulldogs adding on one more in the top of the second to take the lead. Saint Leo however, added three more in the bottom of the second inning to reclaim the lead 6-4. Those three runs came from a three-run homerun off the bat of senior outfielder Sarah Pauscher.
Saint Leo Lady Lions added three more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to push their score to nine runs. The Bulldogs failed to answer the Lions strong offense, and only added two more runs in the top of seventh before dropping the game 9-6. The Bulldogs tallied 10 hits and two errors on the game, and the Lady Lions amassed 12 hits with only one error.
The hot bats of Saint Leo carried over in game two, as they struck first in the bottom of the first inning for a quick 2-0 lead. Minnesota Duluth came around in the top of second to cut the lead in half, but Saint Leo capitalized in the bottom of the third with another 2 running inning making the score 4-1. The bulldogs were not going to go quietly though, and in their next at bat, they scored three runs to tie the game at four runs each. The game then became deadlocked and went into extra innings. Then, in the bottom of the tenth inning, Saint Leo squeezed in a run to walk off the game and complete the sweep on the day with a final score of 5-4.
The second double header was on March 11, versus the Bloomsburg Huskies. The Huskies came in the game with an 8-4 record, looking to cool off the red-hot Saint Leo team. The Lady Lions had other plans though. In both games, the Saint Leo pitchers pitched complete game shutouts. Senior Sara Neuman pitched in the first game and gave up six hits but none of the baserunners came around to score. In the second game, Sophomore Rachel Bean pitched and compiled six strikeouts while giving up only three hits.
Saint Leo jumped out quickly in the first game, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first inning. They then added onto their total with another run in the bottom of the second inning, and another in the bottom of the fifth inning for a final score of four to zero. Both teams had six hits with the Huskies tallying the only error of the game. In the second game, there were less fireworks. No one scored until the fourth inning, when the Lady Lions put up two runs in their half. Looking to add onto the lead, Bethany Kursch laced a solo home run in the bottom of sixth to bring the game to its final score of 3-0.
As those games were the last played games of the season, some players had put up some impressive stats. Of the four eligible players, Kacie Kelly held the best batting average of .432 and had 32 hits and 20 runs scored in 74 at bats. Two players, Pauscher and kursch each had three home runs, combining for six of the teams eight long balls. The 5-man pitching staff for the Lady Lions was also stellar. The highest ERA was 2.50, which is a good ERA even for an ace. Bean was the star of the rotation with a .47 ERA over 29.2 innings pitched. Madi Mott has pitched the most innings and has a 2.01 ERA over 73.0 innings. Had the season continued, the Lions would have been feared heading into the playoffs.
Little did the players know that that game was going to be the last game of the season, or potentially their careers. However, the NCAA DII committee has granted eligibility to all spring sport athletes for having their seasons cut short.
