Friday, May 13, 2011

Jacksonville’s Atlantic Sun season was nearly flawless, but a trip to Nashville left the lone blemishes on their 18-2 conference record. Both losses came at the hands of Lipscomb by identical 4-0 scores and Friday gave the Dolphins a chance to enact revenge on the Lady Bisons with a spot in the A-Sun Championship final on the line.

“Lipscomb beat us in those two games, but I don’t think we played to our full potential we had some miscues with missed pitches and miscues base running, but you also have to give the credit to Lipscomb because they are a really good team and have beaten a lot of quality opponents,” A-Sun Coach of the Year, Amanda Lehotak, added of the Lipscomb doubleheader.

Prior to the twinbill sweep by Lipscomb on April 8th, the Dolphins won their previous ten contests, but have since rebounded with 12-straight wins heading into the A-Sun Championship.

After both teams captured wins in their opening games on Thursday, the Dolphins and Lady Bisons squared off in a battle between the top-two seeds and the past two A-Sun Pitcher of the Years, Lipscomb’s Whitney Kiihnl and Jacksonville’s Sarah Sigrest.

Kiihnl and the Lady Bisons held a 1-0 advantage going into the bottom of the sixth inning, but Jacksonville would have the final say by scoring three runs in the inning.

Surprising to everyone in attendance, Jacksonville’s deciding hit didn’t come from one of four All-Atlantic Sun Conference batters, but rather a freshman. Karson Tuck’s one-out three-run homer in broke up Whitney Kiihnl’s shutout bid and sent the JU bench into a frenzy.

“Coming in as a freshman out of high school and travel ball, you don’t really see that dominant of a pitcher so she’s a very difficult pitcher to hit off, but I knew that I do it and at first I saw Coach Lehotek going crazy and it finally hit me and I thought ‘Ok, I think we just won the ball game,” Tuck said of her showdown with Kiihnl.

JU and Sigrest recorded three outs in the following frame and clinched the victory for Jacksonville and their first appearance in the A-Sun Championship final and revenge for the Dolphins.