Softball: Lady M's fall in final inning

COLLEYVILLE -- Winning close games wasn't an issue for Marcus' softball team during the District 8-5A season. The Lady Marauders had seven contests decided by two runs or fewer and emerged victorious in all but one of them.

But Friday in its regional quarterfinal series against Keller from Colleyville Heritage, the magic ran out on Marcus.

One day after falling in the closing innings of Game 1 against the Lady Indians, Marcus saw the game-winning run cross the plate in the top of the seventh as the Lady Marauders were swept with a 3-2 defeat. Marcus had previously rallied for a run to tie the game in the bottom half of the sixth and put the tying runner on base with one out in the bottom of the seventh.

"It was a hard-fought battle," said Christy Tumilty, Marcus coach. "We just couldn't pack hits together when we had runners in scoring position. And their pitcher was very effective."

Marcus starter Hannah Null and reliever Olivia Barr did their job as well, allowing just five hits combined. However, both pitchers were victimized by walks.

The Lady Indians opened the contest with a pair of runs in the top of the first, sparked by a leadoff walk from Autumn Suydam and an infield bunt single from Tori Charters. In the bottom of the seventh, the Lady Indians again got the leadoff batter on base by virtue of a walk off Null and later posted the go-ahead run on a walk off Barr -- who nearly navigated her way around a bases-loaded jam with one out.

"Anytime you give [Suydam] a free pass, she's probably going to score," Tumilty said. "She's too quick not to have that happen. That was a big difference. I thought Hannah did a really good job. We were trying to leave her in there as long as we could because she was handling it pretty well after that first inning. But in the top of the seventh, we thought it was a little too close and we made a change. I hate for any pitcher to walk in a run, especially one of ours, but it happens. It was a tough situation to come into and the very next batter we got the grounder to third to end the inning. It was a tough situation and our pitchers rose up to the occasion a lot of times this year. Unfortunately, this just wasn't our time."

After falling behind, 2-0, the Lady Marauders had runners in scoring position with less than two outs in both the first and second innings but were unable to scratch across a run.

Marcus finally broke through in the bottom of the third when Jennifer Beardsley and Dani Warne strung together consecutive singles to open the frame before Tanner Pipkin scored Beardsley with an RBI single.

Null, meanwhile, had settled down in the circle surrendering just one hit over the following five innings and was back in position to earn a win after Marcus tied the game in the sixth.

Devon Wallace opened the inning with a single to right and moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt from Hailey Winter. On the ensuing at-bat, Pipkin brought the Marcus faithful to their feet, sending a drive to deep right field. However, Keller's Kristin Watkins was there to make a running catch at the wall. Watkins couldn't make a second consecutive challenging catch, though, as she was handcuffed on a tailing RBI double from Danielle Blocker to even the score at 2-2.

Down by one in the bottom of the seventh, Marcus' Kelly McGuire worked a full count and reached on a one-out single. However, the game ended on a double play at first on a liner off the bat of Beardsley.

"We fought hard," Tumilty said. "It hurts to lose, but we can be proud and hold our heads high because we fought hard. I thought we did a better job of hitting tonight. [Ramsay] had several strikeouts last night and we didn't do that as much tonight. We had a chance. Kelly had a fantastic at-bat as a pinch hitter and got a good hit on a full count. She did exactly what we needed her to do. And we thought Tanner had a big hit in the sixth, their outfielder just made a great play."

While the season ends for Marcus, the careers of multiple Lady Marauders will continue at the collegiate level.

"I thanked the seniors for giving us the leadership we needed to get to the third round of the playoffs," Tumilty said, "because I don't think back in January anybody thought we would make it this far. If it hadn't been for the leadership of the seniors, I don't think we would have either. They've done a lot of winning here."

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