Lady Miners hang on to top Flyers in NCAA regional opener

Ashley Winter

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. -- The Lady Miners' first appearance at the NCAA Division II Tournament was historic, exciting – and successful.

UMR jumped out to a five-run lead, then withstood a four-run Lewis fifth inning to hold on for a 5-4 victory over Lewis in the opening round of the Great Lakes Softball Regional.

The victory sends the seventh-seeded Lady Miners into a winner's bracket game against No. 6 seed Ferris State, which upended third-seeded Gannon 6-1 earlier in the day, at 4:30 p.m. Friday.

Following three relatively quiet innings to start the game, the Lady Miners unloaded on Flyer starter Julie Wingerter in the fourth inning.

After Ashley Winter was retired at first on a close play while trying to bunt her way on, Kelsey Musselman blasted a home run to center to put UMR on the board. Rachel Wilkinson followed with a double in the gap, then Emily Tucker reached on an infield hit.

Lauren Feltmann followed Tucker's hit with an opposite field single to score Wilkinson and send Tucker to third, then stole second moments later. With two outs, Allison Plummer delivered a bloop single to center to bring home Tucker and knock Wingerter out of the game.

UMR got its fourth run of the inning when Krista Porterfield greeted Courtney Lyons with a single down the left field line.

Winter opened the fifth with a home run to left to give UMR a 5-0 lead.

The Lady Miners were one out away from sustaining that shutout through five innings, but the Flyers got three straight two-out RBI hits to close the lead to 5-4.

Christina Willis singled down the line and the ball got past Porterfield to score two runs, then Beth Shelus and Mallory Paine had hits to drive in runs to cut the lead to one. After a walk to Kelly Dianis, Jen O’Hara got out of the inning by retiring Kristy Vanek on a grounder to short.

UMR had a chance to extend its lead in the seventh when it loaded the bases with one out, but a pair of strikeouts ended the threat.

O’Hara got the first two Flyers in the seventh, but walked Paine on a 3-2 pitch to bring Dianis up as the winning run, but O’Hara induced her to fly out to Tucker in right to end the game.

The Lady Miners (29-16) had 11 hits in the game, with Musselman, Wilkinson and Feltmann all getting two hits apiece. O’Hara gave up just five hits and struck out two to improve her record to 19-11.

Friday's game will be broadcast live on KTTR-FM starting at approximately 4:15 p.m.