Senior Tiffany Mikkelson drove in five runs with a three-run homer, double and single and freshman Taylor Lynch had four singles and an RBI as Oklahoma State used a 14-hit attack to oust the University of Maine from the NCAA Tournament’s Athens (Georgia) Regional 10-1 at Jack Turner Stadium on Saturday.
Vanessa Shippy had two singles and three RBIs for the 30-25 winners, who met Northwestern University in an elimination game later Saturday night.
Randee O’Donnell and Maddi Holcomb each had two singles and two runs scored for the Cowgirls.
Host Georgia, which had beaten Maine 6-0 on Friday, topped Northwestern 5-2 in the winner’s bracket game earlier Saturday to advance to the championship round.
Maine, making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2004 and third overall, concluded a 28-21 season. The run scored by the Black Bears was their first ever in six regional tournament games.
The Cowgirls broke a scoreless tie with four third-inning runs off Maine sophomore righty Molly Flowers.
Shippy, Lynch and Madi Sue Montgomery had consecutive singles to deliver the first run before Mikkelson launched her team-leading 11th homer of the season to left field.
“[Molly] just missed her spot,” said Maine catcher Janelle Bouchard, the Black Bears’ only senior.
“You can’t miss your spot at this level,” said Maine first-year coach Mike Coutts.”That put us in a bit of a hole.”
The Cowgirls added three more runs in the fourth at the expense of Annie Kennedy, who had relieved Flowers with one out in the third, and Erin Bogdanovich.
O’Donnell and Holcomb each singled and moved to second and third on a throwing error by third baseman Alyssa Derrick.
Shippy’s sacrifice fly delivered O’Donnell and Lynch singled home Holcomb before Kennedy was replaced by Bogdanovich, who surrendered an RBI double to Mikkelson.
Maine scored its run in the bottom of the fourth on Erika Leonard’s single, a Rachel Carlson bunt and Bouchard’s RBI single to center.
Mikkelson singled home a sixth-inning run for Oklahoma State and Shippy had a two-run single in the seventh.
Kacy Freeze pitched a complete game for the Cowgirls, allowing four singles with five strikeouts and one walk. She threw 89 pitches, 57 for strikes. She improved to 17-10.
“She threw mostly screwballs and riseballs,” said Bouchard. “We had some good swings but we hit it right at people.”
“We haven’t seen pitchers like we’ve seen in the regionals,” said Maine junior left fielder Rachel Harvey.
“Oklahoma State is tough. They’re a good team. They put a lot of pressure on you,” said Coutts. “They have four slappers who can do a lot of different things.
“We didn’t play particularly well or pitch well. We did score the first NCAA Regional run in the history of the program but we didn’t swing the bats well. We did swing the bats better today than we did yesterday but we didn’t get as many hits,” Coutts added.
Maine had five hits against Georgia.
Oklahoma State played errorless ball while Maine committed three errors.
Bouchard had two singles for the Black Bears and the America East Player of the Year concluded the season with a team-leading .404 average.
Leonard and Derrick had the other Maine hits, both singles.
“We’re not at a national level yet,” said Coutts. “We go out and play hard but there are still things we have to get better at to get to the national level and we’re going to work on those things.”