Lady Miners knocked out of GLVC Tourney on day one

Kelsey Musselman

EAST PEORIA, Ill. -- Missouri S&T's softball team entered the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament hopeful of playing its way into the NCAA regional next week, but instead saw its season probably come to an end with a pair of losses on the first day of the event.

The Lady Miners dropped games to Rockhurst by a score of 1-0 and to Lewis 10-4 to get eliminated from the tournament. S&T, which entered the league tourney ranked ninth in the NCAA Great Lakes regional rankings, saw its record go to 26-21 on the season.

Rockhurst got the only run of game one in the third inning when Nicole Randolph to start the inning and scored on Holly Hilton's one-out double.

Ashley Wallingford gave up just five hits and struck out five for the Lady Miners, but was outdueled by Emily Dye as she held S&T to three hits in a complete game effort.

The Lady Miners left two runners on base in the first inning, then got the tying run on base three times in the last four innings. A double play ended their chance in the fourth, then they couldn't take advantage of a leadoff hit in the sixth or a two-out walk to Coley Naughton in the seventh.

In the elimination round game against Lewis, S&T jumped on top with two runs in the first. The rally started when Kelsey Musselman reached on an error with two outs, then after a walk to Emily Tucker, Kristen Drage singled to score the first run. A throwing error on the play allowed Tucker to come in with the second run of the inning.

Jen O'Hara allowed one hit in the first two innings and had two outs on the Flyers in the third, but the Lady Miners couldn't get the third out before Lewis scored four times to get the lead. An infield hit by Kelly Dianis kept the inning alive and Carissa Castonzo followed with a two-run double to tie the score. Moments later, Lisa Gartland singled home two more runs to put Lewis on top.

The Lady Miners closed to within one in the fifth when Musselman belted her 14th home run of the season -- breaking the school's single-season record -- but the Flyers pushed its lead out to 9-3 in the bottom half with five more runs.

S&T got one more run in the sixth when Musselman drew a bases loaded walk with one out, but Courtney Lyons got out of the inning with a pop out and a ground out.

Rachel Wilkinson and Drage had two hits apiece for the Lady Miners while Musselman, who was named Wednesday as the GLVC's "Player of the Year" for the 2008 season, drove in two runs and has 47 on the year to go with her 14 home runs. Musselman posted a .422 batting average in her senior year.