By: by Scott Lipsky
Game One Box Score I Game Two Box Score
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Kennesaw State Owls softball team struggled on Monday afternoon, dropping both games of a doubleheader to UAB, 4-2 and 7-0, in a make-up of a meeting originally scheduled for March 2.
Kennesaw State (17-15, 3-3 A-Sun) rallied in the top of the seventh inning of the first game, scoring a pair of runs to make the game close after entering the frame behind 4-0. After Erica Joseph scored with one out on an RBI fielder’s choice by Klair Wells, freshman Ashlee Burkett, who has been perhaps the Owls most consistent hitter this season, drove in Lyndsay McCurry, who had reached on a fielder’s choice earlier in the inning, to make it 4-2 with just one out. It was not to be, however, as UAB (22-9, 6-3 C-USA) starter Alisha Smith would retire Jenna Closner and Sharon Swanson to end the game.
Owls starter Amanda Burns took the loss in the first game to fall to 2-2 on the season, allowing four runs on just three hits in six innings of work. Just two of runs were earned, however, as herself and Burkett each committed an error on the same play with one out in the bottom of the fifth which led to a pair of unearned runs.
The game was scoreless entering the bottom of the fourth inning, as Burns had yet to allow a hit, but after giving up a lead-off single to Mandy Lowman, she would retire the next two batters she faced and then pitched to catcher Erica Sisson, who hit a shot down the left field line that would turn out to be her first home run of the season, to give the Blazers a 2-0 that they would not relinquish.
Game two got off to an inauspicious start, as the Blazers jumped out to a quick, 2-0 lead, when the first four batters reached base on the strength of three singles and a hit batsman with Owl freshman Abbey Meixel on the mound. Their first run was scored on an RBI single by Cameron Skates, and the second came in four batters later when Meixel walked Catherine Douglass with the bases loaded and two outs.
Meixel, who took the loss to move to 5-8, would bare down, keeping the Owls in the game by holding the Blazers scoreless in the second and fourth innings, and giving up two runs in the fifth. With the Owls down 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth, however, the Blazers broke the game open, plating three runs, one on a single, one on an error, and one on an RBI groundout.
The Owls were held to just one hit in the second game against starter Lauren Webster, who struck out six and also hit a batter. Swanson had the lone hit in the game for Kennesaw State, a single with one out in the fourth inning.
Head coach Scott Whitlock’s club has a chance to bounce back on Wednesday, when they face Tennessee Tech at a neutral site in Chattanooga, Tenn. First pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m.
