SAU bows out of CCAC Tournament in heartbreaking fashion
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Lincoln (Ill.) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
|
St. Ambrose | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Final (8) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
St. Ambrose | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 15 | 22 | 5 |
|
St. Francis (Ill.) | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 18 | 1 |
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
St. Ambrose | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 |
|
Olivet Nazarene | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 10 | 1 |
Thirty-one runs. Forty hits. Extra innings.
SAU's CCAC Tournament game against St. Francis (Ill.) had a little bit of everything.
Unfortunately for the Bees, it was the Saints who struck last, scoring an unearned run in the bottom of the eighth inning to escape with a 16-15 win and live another day in the postseason. And St. Ambrose saw its season come to an end.
It was an offensive explosion right from the start. The Bees scored four runs in the top of the first only to watch the Saints come back with three runs of their own in the bottom half. St. Ambrose pushed across four more runs in the third to grab an 8-4 lead. But St. Francis (24-15), which scored at least one run in each of the eight innings, rebounded to claim a 13-9 lead heading into the seventh.
With their backs against the wall, the Bees responded. Olivia McClintock had an RBI double, Grace Schmitz added a two-run single and Alyssa Schumacher put the team in front with a two-run triple. Running for Schumacher, Jazzy Bowman scored on a Logan Frerichs sacrifice fly to give St. Ambrose a 15-13 lead.
But just three outs away from advancing to the tournament's final four, SAU couldn't hold on. USF got a pair of runs to force extra innings.
Aleah Wight had a two-out triple in the eighth but she was stranded there. The Saints capitalized. USF used a single and an error to put the lead-off hitter in scoring position. Another SAU error, the team's fifth of the game, on a sacrifice bunt allowed the winning run to score in walk-off fashion.
McClintock finished 4-for-6 while Wight, Kayla Stenger and Colleen Barrett each collected three hits. Schmitz, Schumacher and McKenna Vrbovsky also had multi-hit games as part of the 22-hit attack.
Jane Thomas, the third Bee pitcher of the contest, was charged with the loss.
It was the second loss of the day for St. Ambrose.
The Bees fell to Olivet Nazarene, the CCAC regular season champs, 9-1 in six innings earlier Friday afternoon.
A Stenger sacrifice fly gave SAU a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, but after pounding out three hits in the opening frame, the Bees managed just three more hits the rest of the way. The Tigers tied the game in the bottom of the first before clinching the win with eight runs over the fifth and sixth innings.
Allison Polly had two hits in the loss.
St. Ambrose opened the postseason with a dominant 8-0 five-inning win over Lincoln College Thursday night.
Frerichs was the offensive star, going 2-for-3 with four RBIs. Sophia Delgado also had two hits, including a double to score Cassie Sprout to end the game in the fifth.
Alyia Oliver earned the win with three innings of one-hit ball. Thomas added two innings of scoreless relief.
The CCAC Tournament will conclude Saturday. St. Francis will play Roosevelt in an elimination game while tournament unbeatens Olivet Nazarene and Saint Xavier will square off to start the day.
SAU finished the year with a 19-12 record.