May 17, 2014
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TUCSON, Ariz. - Despite a grand slam by senior Chelsea Kehr, the Boston University softball team fell in the NCAA Regional opener at No. 11 Arizona, 9-6, on Friday night. With the loss, the Patriot League champions drop to 35-20 and will next face Louisville on Saturday in an elimination game with the ESPN broadcast set for 7 p.m. ET.
Owning a 28-2 record at home with 18 run-rule victories, the eight-time national champion Wildcats (42-13) jumped out in front with four runs in the second and then took the lead for good in the bottom of the third with two more after Kehr's homer. They added three insurance runs in the fifth to advance to the winner's bracket.
Sophomore Melanie Russell (12-4) collected the loss after pitching five innings and allowing nine runs off 10 hits. She was undone by two costly BU errors that resulted in just two of the runs being earned. Arizona's Shelby Babcock lasted three innings after giving up the four-run lead and was relieved by Wildcat ace Estela Pinon (18-7), who struck out eight Terriers.
Both senior Jayme Mask and junior Mandy Fernandez had two hits apiece to lead BU. Mask also reached home plate once to tie April Setterlund's ('11) school record of 170 runs. Hitting a home run for the third straight game, the Patriot League tournament MVP Kehr added a RBI sacrifice fly in the seventh to finish with a game-high five RBIs. Senior Brittany Clendenny was 1-of-2 with two walks and two runs.
The Wildcats led off in the bottom of the second with a base runner reaching first due to an infield error. A hard-hit double down the right field line and a bunt single led to the first run. With the bases loaded, Kelsey Rodriguez belted a bases-clearing double toward the right field wall to push the lead to 4-0.
Senior Amy Ekart started the rally in the third on a lead-off single. Mask followed with a one-out single and was replaced at first by freshman Brittany Younan on a fielder's choice. Clendenny then drew a two-out walk to set the stage for Kehr's heroics. Facing a 1-0 count, Kehr clubbed the ball over the left field wall to tie the game at 4-4.
Featuring the nation's No. 2 batting average at .353, Arizona responded in the bottom half with two runs off two hits. Russell hit a batter, gave up a single and walked the next Wildcat to load the bases with no outs. A sacrifice fly and RBI single put Arizona up ahead again, 6-4.
The Wildcats took advantage of a dropped ball in the outfield in the fifth by adding three more runs with two outs for the 9-4 lead. BU did not give in and tried to mount a rally behind Mask's walk and Clendenny's double. Kehr hit a sacrifice fly, and Fernandez followed with a RBI single.
However, Pinon fanned two Terriers to finish the game with eigth strikeouts and the victory.
Arizona will next face LSU at 4:30 p.m. ET and will be followed by the Terriers and Louisville at 7 p.m. ET. The loser of the first game and the winner of the second will then meet at 9:30 p.m. ET. All three contests will be televised by ESPN, as BU tries to reach its third regional final after going 2-2 in both 1996 and 2009.
Boston University postgame press conference transcript
Head coach Kathryn Gleason
Opening statement:
"I thought it was a great game in a great environment. We pick up the ball in the outfield and a couple times in the infield and we were right in that game. I thought our team played well. We competed, and we pitched well enough to win."
On the errors:
"You can't give a team like that extra outs, and that's what we did. We haven't done that in a long time. I think we just pick up the ball, and we're right there. They had the momentum shift when they scored the four runs, and we took the momentum back with the grand slam, and we hung in there and we competed. I'm really proud of them for that, but we know what we need to fix to compete tomorrow and to keep playing."
On the optimism moving forward:
"Absolutely. I've told them since last week when we won the Patriot League Championship that they've earned this and they're here for a reason. They're a team that never gives up, and they're in every game. When the other team scores, we score. We fight for that pitching change, and that's what happened today. We're ready to get to tomorrow and compete the same way we did today,"
On hitting more homers than the NCAA leaders:
“That's a great positive. Chelsea (Kehr) hit two home runs to help us win games last week, so for her to continue to do that was a huge momentum shift.”
Senior infielder Chelsea Kehr
On the competitiveness of the game:
"It really shows how much fight we have in us and how much we believe in each other. If we had just caught a few more balls here and there, I think we could have had them. We would have had them on the ropes, and that was our main goal going into that game, to have them on the ropes and give ourselves a shot. Being able to fight back shows our teams character. We never gave up. We say before every game, I don't care who we're playing because we always play our game. We could be playing the USA National Team and we wouldn't care, we would still be going out there and having a blast and doing everything we could to win."
On the grand slam:
"It just means a lot because I could feel the momentum slipping from us, and we needed to get something that inning, so being able to do that shows that we come back after getting runs scored on us. We loaded up the bases to try to make something happen, and we always just battle."
Sophomore pitcher Melanie Russell
On her performance:
"I felt great. We prepared all week for it, so it was just another game and another team to face."
On what Arizona does well:
"They take hacks. But I think I kept the ball low in the zone, and they're a good hitting team,"
Arizona postgame press conference transcript:
Head coach Mike Candrea
Opening statement:
“In game one, all you are worried about is winning. It wasn’t pretty, but we got the job done, and we’ll put our focus on LSU tomorrow.”
On the lack of home runs:
“I don’t think that you can go up there and try to hit home runs, and that’s not something that we try to do. Tonight was one of those nights that the ball didn’t find the other side of the fence. You have to be able to manufacture runs, and you have to be able to do the little things. I thought that Suitos came up big with a couple of big hits. Their lack of defense in the outfield kind of shot them in the foot. It was just one of those games where we got what we needed to, but we made the game a lot more interesting than it should’ve been”
On starting Shelby Babcock:
“We played them here last year, and (Babcock) threw a three hitter. We really feel like we needed to get some innings out of someone, so we were hoping to get a solid performance of about four or five innings out of her, but when you get into these first games, you don’t want to make it interesting. You have to take it one game at a time and I felt that after (Babcock) gave up the four runs, that we had to make a switch, and not put ourselves in one of those situations.”
