Twice As Nice

Arkansas Pine Bluff coach Crystal Bowers has been telling her team all year the game is seven innings and it needs to play all seven innings.

That mantra was proven right on Tuesday as UAPB battled back from a 10-1 deficit in the first game against Ouachita Baptist at Torii Hunter Softball Complex for a 13-12 win. The Lady Lions followed with a 6-2 win in the second game.

The wins were UAPB’s (2-12) first two of the year.

“It doesn’t matter how far behind we may be, but you have seven innings,” Bowers said. “I said to just scrap until you can get to where you need to be, and that’s pretty much what they did. Instead of being dejected, they used it to their advantage.”

Ouachita Baptist (10-9) had a 10-1 lead going into the bottom of the third inning when the Lady Lions put six runs on the board. The Lady Tigers built a 12-7 lead before UAPB scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Tiressa Jacobs had a lead-off single and score on Heather Leigh’s two-run home run, putting the Lady Lions down by just on run.

Valerie Higareda reached base on a walk and later advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Nicole Frazier. Higareda made it to third on a wild pitch during Tanisha Bradford’s at bat, who later struck out.

With a runner on third with two outs, Jasmine Hardwrick drew a walk after falling behind 1-2 and she fouled off two pitches.

CeCe Kolesar followed and hit a deep fly ball to centerfield and it bounced off Megan Askew’s glove, allowing not only Higareda to score, but also Hardwrick all the way from first base for the 13-12 win.

“I needed to get a hit and needed to get on base to get something going,” said Kolesar, who was 4-for-5 with three runs and two RBIs in the game. “That was huge for my team. For us to come back from 10-1, we just hit and pulled together as a team.”

Ouachita Baptist coach Mike Ghee said his team gave UAPB the game.

“We had multiple errors and 10 of the runs were unearned,” he said. “The ball bounced off the glove and should’ve been caught and the game should’ve been over.”

In the second game, UAPB got off to a 2-0 lead after the first inning on Higareda’s two-out two-RBI double.

Ouachita Baptist tied the game in the top of the second, before Amanda Nordberg’s solo home run to lead off the third inning put UAPB back up 3-2 and scored six insurance runs in the sixth inning.

Nordberg, who also pitched the game for the Lady Lions, and went seven innings and gave up two runs on nine hits, three walks and struck out five.

Kolesar said the team wanted to win the games more than Ouachita Baptist.

“We really wanted to win and we needed these wins,” she said.

McGhee said while his team was unable to overcome the loss from the first game, the umpires had a big role in the second game.

“I don’t blame umpires, but it was obviously a different strike zone for us than it was for them,” he said. “That’s why we have different rules and interpretations and our coaches get to evaluate umpires and guys like that don’t umpire in our conference.”