GREELEY, Colo. -- Down to its last strike, Weber State's Riley Whalen had a two-out, two-run triple in the seventh inning to lift the Wildcats to an 8-7 victory over Sacramento State on Thursday morning at Gloria Rodriguez Field.
Today marked the Hornets' first game of the Big Sky Conference Tournament, a four-day double elimination event hosted by Northern Colorado. After seeing its first two games postponed because of rain, Sacramento State (26-22) finally played this morning. The Hornets are the No. 2 seed and received a first round bye. They played a Weber State (26-29) squad that is the No. 3 seed and defeated Montana yesterday.
The Hornets will now play later today against No. 5 seed Portland State about 3 p.m. The loser of that game is eliminated from tourney play, while the winner plays tomorrow at 11 a.m. PT.
In today's game, Sacramento State held leads of 4-0 after two innings, and 7-2 after four innings. However, Weber State scored a run in the fifth, three in the sixth and twice in the seventh. In that seventh inning, both Wildcat runs were unearned as a Hornet error (that would be have been the third out and ended the game) prolonged the inning and allowed for Whalen's heroics. Whalen drove a 2-2 pitch to the left-center field gap scoring runners from first and second base.
Sacramento State had 12 hits, including two apiece from
Katie Marsh,
Andrea Lira,
Madison Evers-Lyles,
Alexa Carino and
Caroline Evans. Marsh had a two-run homer in the first inning that helped put the Hornets up, 3-0.
A big moment in the game occurred in the second inning. The Hornets had just used a Weber State error to take a 4-0 lead and had the bases loaded with no outs. With a chance to break the game open, Sacramento State did not push anymore runs across. Weber State scored twice in the top of the third, and re-gained some momentum.
Sacramento State appeared to be resting comfortably after scoring three times in the fourth to take a 7-2 lead. RBI-singles from Lira and Evers-Lyles followed by a
Shannon Garcia sacrifice fly gave theHornets a five-run cushion.
However, Weber State would score runs in each of the final three innings. In the bottom of the seventh, pinch hitter
Gwen Ludwig led off the inning with a single. She would eventually move to second base with one out, but Wildcat pitcher Jayci Finch (4-6) struck out the final two batters of the game.
