By Cody Pastorella
The Port Arthur News
May 03, 2008 10:19 pm
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BAYTOWN — With two outs, the score knotted at 0-0 in the bottom of the seventh and runners at second and third, Port Neches-Groves' Mallory Livingston fielded a slow grounder at third base and fired toward first.
The perfect throw would have saved the day for at least the moment by sending Game 2 into extra innings. But, the throw wasn't perfect and Santa Fe's Ashley Morris scored the winning run to end the ball game at 1-0.
With the loss, the PN-G Lady Indians' 2008 season is in the books with an 18-8-1 overall record and a second place finish in District 22-4A at 11-3.
The game was hardly Livingston's fault, however. She made a number of hotshot plays at third throughout the ball game to help keep Santa Fe from scoring in earlier innings.
Livingston even started a double-play in the bottom of the second that swung momentum in the Lady Tribe's corner for the first time against the posing Santa Fe Indians.
PN-G lost Game 1, 7-1 on Friday night, allowing eight hits while committing five errors.
The Lady Indians turned things around defensively in Game 2. The only recorded error just happened to be the one that let Stacie Tassin reach first safely while Morris sprinted to the plate.
Santa Fe started its seventh inning rally with two outs. Morris doubled into the left field gap. She was 2-for-2 with a single, double, a walk and a run scored in Game 2. She also homered in Game 1 against Katy Austin, who suffered the loss on Friday and Saturday to drop to 9-5 for the year.
After Morris double, Jordan Garza singled to left. Morris advance to third on that hit. Then Tassin followed with the roller to third.
"It was a good season," said PN-G head coach Brook Fontenot. "You can't just look at this game because these girls accomplished a lot this season and have a lot to be proud of. I'm very proud of our season.
"You never want to lose — it always hurts, but we fault hard today. I thought we did a great job coming out and putting Game 1 behind us. We played very good defensively.
"We just let one routine ground ball eat us up."
Austin improved a great deal from Friday's loss. She allowed just five hits and one unearned run.
Her counterpart, Tassin, was just a little better. Tassin struck out five in seven innings of work while allowing just three hits. Also, Tassin never surrendered a walk in the winning effort.
The Tribe put runners on base in each of the first three innings but never posed a serious threat until the top of the seventh when Shelby Blanchard singled to start the inning. Running for Blanchard, Haley Savant reached second after Jessica Shields laid down a sacrifice bunt.
That gave PN-G's sixth and seventh hitters two outs to get in Savant from second base. The Lady Indians could not do it, as a strikeout gave the Tribe two outs and an easy grounder to third ended the threat.
Neither team recorded a hit in the fourth, fifth or sixth innings, as both hurlers continued to shutdown the opposition in order.
Livingston was PN-G's most productive batter. She reached first after a sharp grounder to Bobbie Salas, at third base, forced an error. The sophomore also singled in the third inning to give the Lady Indians a second hit. Livingston was 1-for-3 on the day, reaching base twice.
Lindsay Holland had the Tribe's first hit, which came in the top of the second inning with two outs. Holland, who went 1-for-3 in the contest, was left stranded at first after her single.
Livingston also never made it past first base, as she was put out at second base in the first inning after Sami Jo Williams attempt at a sacrifice bunt went straight back to Tassin, who fielded easily and fired to second for the lead runner.
Livinston's single with two outs in the third inning also failed to materialize into runs.
"She's just a good pitcher," Fontenot said of Tassin, who was 2-0 in the series. "I thought we did a little better job today, but she just kept us off balance."
Tassin surrendered just one run on five hits in two games against PN-G.
"I thought we had some bad at-bats, we weren't very patient in the first game. She just did a good job against us," Fontenot said.
The Lady Indians will lose five players from this year's squad to graduation, but Fontenot added there is plenty to look forward to next year.
"We will certainly miss our seniors," Fontenot said. "There are some important players in that group, but we have several young players who got to learn a whole lot from those seniors — they got to learn a lot from this season — players who made contributions to this year's team.
"We have a lot to look forward to."
For instance, six of the Lady Tribe's starters in Game 2 are all underclassmen, including two freshman, three sophomores and one junior.
Of that bunch is junior catcher Sam Lunceford and Austin, who is a sophomore.
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