Hokies lose to Buckeyes in softball
Posted May19, 2007 at 04:07 PM
Mark Berman here from Columbus, Ohio, where the top-seeded Virginia Tech softball team has lost to Ohio State 2-1 on Saturday afternoon in the NCAA regionals.
Second-seeded OSU earned a berth in Sunday's final. Tech dropped into the losers' bracket of the double-elimination tournament. Tech will play again at 6 tonight against Cal State-Fullerton or Canisius for the other berth in the final. Fullerton currently leads Canisius 6-0 in the 4th and seems headed to a meeting tonight with the Hokies.
Angela Tincher took the loss, allowing five OSU hits, three walks and one earned run while striking out nine.
Tech assistant coach Al Brauns, who was coaching first base, was ejected.
The excitement.happened with Tech down 2-0 with one out in the sixth. The Hokies had runners on first and second, Kelsey Hoffman of Tech lined a shot down the right-field line that the Hokies thought landed in fair territory. Hoffman and the runners took off, the Buckeyes fielded the ball and threw home, and Caroline Stolle crossed home plate.
But the home-plate ump ruled the ball landed in foul territory; it was his call because the first-base ump was over by second base. Brauns, the first-base coach, argued with the foul-ball call and argued and was finally ejected when the threw his sunglasses toward the Tech dugout.
Brauns told me later he saw chalk fly.
"Chalk's a fair ball," Brauns said.
"I was looking to make sure it stayed in," Hoffman said. "I thought it did."
"It looked good from where I [was]," said Tech coach Scot Thomas, who was coaching third. "The way everybody was acting, I thought it was in. I was pretty shocked [by the call]."
"My catcher said it was ... 10 inches, a foot outside the line," OSU coach Linda Kalafatis said. "Our lines are painted. That wasn't chalk. .. My kids down the line ... knew that it was a good foot off the line."
Hoffman still ended up on base via a walk. Jessica Everhart lined out with the bases loaded, though. Charisse Mariconda had an RBI infield single to cut the lead to 2-1, but Kelsy Rokey flied out with the bases loaded to end the inning.
Tech left seven runners on base in the game.
"We left too many runners on ... and didn't end up come up with some clutch hits," Thomas said. "We didn't get the job done."
Tincher threw a no-hitter against Canisius on Friday and threw a no-hitter against the Buckeyes in March, but she gave up a run in the first inning Saturday on a double by Nicole Koyano, two walks and a sacrifice fly. Tincher wesn't thrilled with the walk calls.
Tincher gave up another run in the second on a walk, first baseman Stephanie Savre's fielding error on a ball hit by Brittany Vanderink, and an RBI single to left by Sam Marder.
"The zone was a little tighter than usual," Thomas said. "Especially in the first, she felt like she was [throwing] some strikes that she didn't get."
"Our goal was to see that riseball and if we stayed off of it then we'd really beat her," Koyano said. "Her riseball was her go-to pitch so if we laid off of it then she'd get rattled and she would get off her rhythm."
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