Miscues costly in UTC softball loss
The three runs the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga softball team gave up Wednesday to Belmont weren’t as much the result of the three hits allowed as the three errors committed.
Freshman pitcher Allison Swinford had one of her best performances of the season and the Mocs outhit the Bruins 4-3, but their defensive mistakes led to a pair of unearned runs in a 3-0 loss at Frost Stadium.
Swinford struck out two batters and walked three in a complete game, and the earned run she gave up was a fourth-inning homer by Lexi Rouse.
Belmont (12-3) got on the board in the third inning after a fielding error led to Elison Ollinger reaching base. She advanced to second on Georgia McKee’s bunt, then scored on Taylor Hargrove’s single. After Rouse’s homer, the Bruins added a run in the seventh when Ollinger walked, stole second and took third after a throwing error, then scored after interference was called on UTC (8-12).
Morgan Kazerooni, Amy Lewis, Aly Walker and Brook Womack accounted for the Mocs’ hits, with Womack’s seventh-inning double following an Emma Sturdivant walk and putting runners on second and third with no one out.
The Mocs managed only a popout, a strikeout and a groundout, stranding two of the six runners they left in scoring position during the game.
The Mocs were set to leave this morning for Clearwater, Fla., where they are scheduled to play 11 games over the next 10 days in South Florida’s Under Armour Invitational, starting at 4:15 p.m. Friday against Central Florida. It’s a crucial stretch of the schedule because it will be followed by the start of Southern Conference play with a March 24-25 series against Mercer in Chattanooga.
“We can’t put a complete
game together,” UTC coach Frank Reed said. “We keep leaving people on base. We dig ourselves into a hole, then we become accustomed to being a loser. I don’t know how to make them feel they shouldn’t be accustomed to it, either.
“We’ve got 11 games to figure it out before Mercer. Hopefully we’ll be better when we get home.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress. com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.