Even though Marquette's softball team fell to Edwardsville in the final of a four-team softball tournament Saturday afternoon, the Explorers still had a good day, thanks to the efforts of Megan Wittich.
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Wittich connected in the bottom of the seventh for a two-run homer to cap a five-run comeback to down Peoria Notre Dame 9-7 in the semifinals of the tournament, while the host Tigers defeated Quincy Notre Dame 4-0. The Tigers downed the Explorers 4-0 in the final, while QND defeated PND 9-3 in the third-place match.
“We're a group of fighters,” said Marquette coach Dan Weidman. “We've had some ugly wins this year; I mean, there have been times we've wanted to jump on them over how they play, and just when you want to, they play great.
“There's some things that we need to get fixed, but we're all right.”
Of the game against Edwardsville, “we just couldn't get the big inning,” Weidman said. “We had an inning where we had the bases loaded, but couldn't get the big hit we needed and they made a couple of pretty good plays on defense. It's how they play; they make the plays and make you earn your hits.”
Playing the Explorers after downing the Raiders was difficult for Edwardsville, and part of it was the Explorers' freshman pitcher, Meghan Schorman. “She was keeping us off-balance some,” said Tiger coach Lori Blade. “They have good-quality pitching, but we adjusted to it and made the plays we needed to.”
The Tigers jumped out to the lead early after Jordan Garella only took five pitches to retired the side in the top of the first. It started Jordan Corby walked and Rachel Anderson singled her over to second. Kallen Loveless then singled, with Anderson being called out on interference but Corby coming home, and Hayli Green stroked a double to bring in two more runs and put the Tigers up 3-0.
Garella cruised along throughout the game, keeping the Explorers off the basepaths with key plays and strikeouts. In the third, the Tigers got another run when Anderson tripled to right-center and came home on a sacrifice fly from Loveless, with right-fielder Carly Schaber making a sparkling catch for the out.
Garella ran into trouble only in the sixth when Sam Harshbarger singled and Schorman was hit by a pitch. Grace Frost hit into a fielder's choice, Harshbarger forced at third, but Kalie Buecker walked to load the bases. Garella then got Wittich to pop to second and Miranda Schroeder to fly to left to end the threat.
In the Marquette-PND game, Schorman went 2-for-4 with a RBI and a run scored, Emma Taylor was 2-for-3 with a RBI and a run scored and Wittich was 3-for-4 with the game-winning homer, two RBIs and a run scored. Tess Eberlin had two runs scored and Harshbarger, Forst, Buecker and Schaber also scored.
Marquette went to 20-6 on the year, while Edwardsville went to 17-3 on the season.
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