Cortland's softball game vs. Linfield College (Ore.) at the NCAA Div. III World Series Sunday night was halted due to rain and will be resumed Monday at 10 a.m.
Cortland is leading the game 1-0 in the bottom of the first. The Red Dragons turned a 6-4-3 double play in the top of the first to escape a jam. In the bottom of the first, Donnalyn Cross led off with a single and Lucia Meola followed with an RBI double to right center (she was thrown out at third). With Abby Martin batting, a lightning strike nearby stopped the game, and ensuing rain forced the suspension. The game will resume with Cortland leading 1-0 and still batting in the first.
The winner of the Cortland-Linfield game will play Texas-Tyler at 12 p.m. Monday. That winner will face Christopher Newport (Va.), currently 3-0 in the tournament, in the championship round Monday at 2 p.m. If CNU wins, the tourney is over. If CNU loses, a winner-take-all title game will be held Tuesday.
In the first game, Cortland rallied from a 5-0 first-inning deficit to defeat DePauw University (Ind.), 14-8, in an elimination game at the NCAA Div. III Softball World Series. The Red Dragons (42-4-1) earn a rematch with nationally top-ranked Linfield College (Ore.) in another elimination game Sunday night at approximately 7:30 p.m. Linfield defeated Cortland, 10-0 in five innings, to open the eight-team tournament.
Senior Donnalyn Cross (Binghamton/Chenango Valley) finished 4-for-4 with two triples, a double, two RBI and four runs scored. She is now the NCAA Div. III career leader with 43 triples, two more than the previous record-holder.
Sophomore Lucia Meola (Liverpool/Cicero-North Syracuse) went 3-for-3 with a walk, four RBI and two runs scored, senior Brooke Weidman (Wayland/Wayland-Cohocton) was 2-for-3 with a walk and three runs scored and junior Jessica Harman (Penfield) finished 1-for-3 with a walk, solo homer and two runs.
Still trailing 7-4 entering the bottom of the fifth, Cortland scored five runs to take a 9-7 lead. DePauw (34-11-1), tied for 16th nationally, scored once in the top of the sixth to draw back to within a run, but the Red Dragons broke the game open with five more runs in the bottom of the sixth.
Cortland won despite tying an NCAA Div. III tournament record by committing eight errors. All eight of DePauw’s run were unearned as a result. Three of those errors helped DePauw score its five first-inning runs. Buena Vista made eight errors, also in a win, versus Cal Lutheran in the 1998 NCAA West regional.
Junior Lyndsay Rowell (Sandy Creek) improved to 26-3 with the victory. She gave up 10 hits and one walk and struck out one. All 14 runs that Rowell has allowed through Cortland’s first three World Series games have been unearned.
Haley Buchanan led DePauwby going 3-for-4 with two runs scored. Amy Hallett hit a three-run homer in the first and finished 2-for-3 with four RBI and two runs and Rachel MacBeth was 2-for-5 with an RBI.
Down 5-0, Cortland got two runs back in the bottom of the first when Cross tripled and scored on a Meola single. Meola was thrown out trying to advance to second on theplay, and two batters later Harman hit a solo homer to left for her second round-tripper of the season.
MacBeth’s RBI single in the third put the Tigers up 6-2, but Cortland scored twice in the bottom of the inning on a Meola two-run single. A leadoff error by the Red Dragons in the fourth set up an eventual RBI single by Hallett and DePauw led 7-4.
Cortland’s five-run fifth inning started with a Weidman single and a Cross RBI double. Meola singled home Cross, and an Abby Martin (Oswego) single and Cassie Kardias (Shrub Oak/Lakeland) walk loaded the bases with one out. DePauw’s Emily Bichler then unleashed a wild pitch that allowed Meola to score the tying run.
During the play, Bichler started to walk back to the circle with home plate uncovered and pinch-runner Charlotte Freed (Great Neck/Great Neck South), who started the play at second base, alertly kept running past third and scored to give Cortland an 8-7 lead. Kardias went from first to third on the sequence and scored on Meaghan Kohler’s (Franklin, NJ/Warren Hills Regional) RBI single.
DePauw got a run back in the sixth on an RBI groundout by Jamie Story, but left the potential tying run stranded on third. Cortland then broke the game open with five runs in the sixth on a Cross RBI triple, a Martin sacrifice fly, an error, a Tara Donnino (East Northport/Northport) sacrifice fly and a Katie Fusco (Lake Ronkonkoma/Sachem North) RBI single.
Courtesy: SUNY Cortland
