DECATUR, ALA.. – Azusa Pacific's amazing run through NAIA Softball Championship Tournament fell 1 inning short as No. 2-seeded Oklahoma City University scored 4 runs in the top of the seventh inning to down Azusa Pacific, 5-1, in the NAIA title game Saturday afternoon.
The Stars used a pair of doubles, a single and 2 fielder's choices to score the 4 runs that broke open a 1-1 game. With runners at first and third and no outs, Jessica Oleson hit a grounder up the first base line that Cougar first baseman Jennifer Robison picked up and then bobbled, allowing OCU's Tiffany Kissee to score the go-ahead run. Christie Xuging's 2-out double to left-center scored Oleson and Stacey Polonich to cap the inning.
The Cougar managed just 3 hits off OCU's Sonia Ortiz, but 2 of them came with 2 outs in the fifth inning when Jennie Waleszonia singled and came home on Cristal Brown's double to right-center to knot the game at 1-1.
Azusa Pacific was playing its sixth game in less than 28 hours. The Cougars won 4 elimination games on Friday, walking off the field at 12:45 a.m. (CDT). They returned at noon to take on defending national champ Simon Fraser in another elimination game, which again the Cougars won, thumping the Clan, 7-0. Thirty minutes later Azusa Pacific was back on the field to take on Oklahoma City in the national championship game.
"I don't feel like we ran out of gas in the Oklahoma City game," said Cougar coach Sharon Lehman. "We just didn't do the little things we needed to in that seventh inning, and OCU is too good to be given free opportunities."
Oklahoma City, which closes its season at 61-12, wins its fifth title in the past 7 years. Azusa Pacific, which becomes the first GSAC school ever to advance to the championship game, closes its season at 53-15.
"The ladies were unbelievable," said Lehman, whose Cougars lost 2-0 to Eastern Oregon on Thursday and thus had to travel through the loser's bracket all the way to the championship game. "I told them before the Simon Fraser game, 'Make them carry us off the field. Leave everything you have out there,' and that's what they did."
In the first game, the Cougars scored 7 runs in the first 3 innings to run away from top-seeded Simon Fraser. The Cougars had 10 hits, led by Lorna Lyttle's 3-for-3 effort that included a pair of runs scored and an RBI. Junior Mandy Dorow limited the Clan to just 5 hits and recorded her 16th shutout of the season and her fourth of the postseason.
Dorow, Lyttle, Brown and pitcher Jodi Miller were all named to the All-Tourney team. With Dorow and Miller on the squad, Azusa Pacific becomes the first school ever to put 2 pitchers on the all-tourney team.
Simon Fraser (38-13) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -- 0 5 2
Azusa Pacific (53-14) 2 4 1 0 0 0 0 -- 7 10 0
Shannon Carier (L, 9-5), Kathy Iggulden (5) and Kristine Taylor, Erin Campstone (3), Kelsey Swanson (5)
Mandy Dorow (W, 26-6) and Jaime Salazar
2B – Lindsay Brooks (SFU), Tania Jamieson (SFU), Jennifer Robison (APU)
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Oklahoma City (61-12) 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 -- 5 7 3
Azusa Pacific (53-15) 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 -- 1 3 1
Jodi Miller (W, 27-9) and Jaime Salazar
Sonia Ortiz (W, 32-5) and Tiffany Kissee
2B -- Christie Xuging (OCU), Tiffany Kissee (OCU), Cristal Brown (APU)
3B -- Stacey Polonich (OCU)
