April 30, 2007

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The University of Mobile softball team won the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference Tournament with an 8-2 win over the Belhaven College Lady Blazers Saturday at William Carey University's Joseph & Nancy Fail Field.

The Lady Rams made the most of 8 hits and Ginger Reeser told coach to give her the ball for the game and she dazzled, holding the Lady Blazers to 1 hit and working around 5 Lady Ram errors. Reeser went 7 innings and struck out 4, while limiting the Lady Blazers to 2 runs.

The two teams played to a 1-1 tie through 3 innings when they traded runs in the 3rd. The Lady Rams struck in the top of the frame on a RBI single from Cristina Rodriguez.

Belhaven answered the run in the bottom half of the frame without the benefit of a hit. Britney Webb drew a lead off walk and swiped 2 bases, including home on a double steal.

The defending national champs responded the following inning with a 3-run rally to take command of the game. Anadys Suarez tripled and Kelyn Mendoza walked to set the stage for a 2-run double to the left-center gap from Taylor Lee Phillips. Following a single from Lauren Thomas and a walk to Sojo to load the bases the Lady Blazers handed the Lady Rams a gift. After back-to-back force outs at home stopped the bleeding and put 2 outs on the board, a passed ball brought home the 3rd Mobile run of the frame.

Mobile tacked on 2 runs in each of the final 2 innings to seal the deal. Rodriguez followed a run-scoring wild pitch with another RBI single in the 7th, and Yaicey Sojo finished the scoring with a 2-run single in the 7th. The Lady Rams earn an automatic bid to the Region XIII Tournament May 9-10 in Daphne, AL.

Round Two

Victory number two in the tournament, saw the Lady Rams take down arch-rival Spring Hill College thanks to a big home run and some stellar pitching.

The Lady Rams used a timely 3-run homer from Yaicey Sojo to answer a pair of unearned runs from the Lady Badgers and rode the pitching of Ginger Reeser to the victory. The lefty went the distance, allowing only 2 unearned runs on 3 hits, and fanning 2 to run her record to 15-6 on the season.

After Mobile built up a 3-0 lead through 3 innings, Spring Hill pulled within 1 when a Tiffany Jones single made it under Kelyn Mendoza's glove to plate 2.

Likewise, the Lady Rams made use of a pair of Lady Badger errors in the bottom half of the frame to pull away. Back-to-back errors put 2 Mobile runners on to begin the threat, and following a sacrifice bunt, Sojo sent her moonshot to left field for a 6-2 advantage.

Mobile opened the game's scoring, when they scored twice in the first on a pair of RBI singles from Cristina Rodriguez and Anadys Suarez, and tacked on another in the 3rd, thanks to Rodriguez's second RBI of the day.

Round One

The Lady Rams opened the tournament by cruising to a 6-2 victory over host William Carey University, thanks to putting up a 4-spot in the 1st.

They used 3 Lady Crusader errors and 2 hits to open up the ball game with a 4-0 lead in the top of the 1st inning. Back-to-back errors and a passed ball put Yaicey Sojo and Abby Campbell at the corners to ignite the outburst. Sojo scored first by swiping home plate when Campbell got in a rundown off 1st base trying to steal. Jessica McIntyre followed by drilling a RBI single, and 4 batters later, Kelyn Mendoza provided the big blow with a 2-run double off the right field wall.

Mobile tacked on 2 more in the top of the 4th thanks to 3 singles and a hit-batter. Anadys Suarez singled in the first run, and with 2 outs and the bases loaded, Taylor Lee Phillips drove in a run with a hit batsman.

The Lady Crusaders finally got in the hit column, and thanks to Shelly Berry, broke into the run column as well, in the bottom of the 4th. After a double off the wall, broke up Nikki Madden's no-hitter, Berry followed with a 2-out 2-run home run to left.

Madden went the distance to improve to 13-8 on the season. Berry finished 2-for-2 with 2 RBI on the game, while four Mobile batters had multi-hit days at the plate. Sojo finished 2-for-5, Campbell went 3-for-5, and Suarez and Mendoza collected 2 hits apiece.