LVC vs. Messiah Box
LVC vs. Elizabethtown Box
Championship web site
ANNVILLE, Pa. - Lebanon Valley College moved into Saturday's Commonwealth Conference championship game with an emphatic first day of the conference tournament, pounding Messiah College and Elizabethtown College in twin 9-0, 5-inning decisions at the LVC Softball Park.
The Dutchmen (26-9), the tournament's top seed, blasted the Falcons (21-20) in the tournament opener with a five-run third inning. Allie Davies' walk-off home run, her second of the day, ended their game with Elizabethtown (12-23), capping an eight-run fifth.
In the tournament's other game on Friday, E-town held off Widener, 2-0. In action tomorrow, Messiah will face Widener at 9 a.m., with the winner taking on Elizabethtown at 11 a.m. LVC will play that game's winner for the title at 1 p.m. The winner of the Commonwealth crown receives an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Lebanon Valley has never won a conference title; they will make their fourth appearance in a championship game and first since 2006, when it fell to Moravian.
LVC's dramatic pair of mercy-rule wins marks the first time a team has won two games in five innings in the history of the Commonwealth tournament. Pitchers Laura Snyder and Val Malizzia were outstanding, with Snyder two-hitting Messiah to improve to 13-2 and Malizzia doing the same to E-town, striking out six to move to 11-3.
In game one against Messiah, LVC took a quick 2-0 lead with a pair of unearned runs in the first. After Lauren Sanford led off with a walk, Katie DeJulio bunted her around, and two batters later, Jess Salisbury reached on an error to score Sanford. Davies then smacked the first of her four RBI on the day with a single to plate Salisbury.
The Dutchmen then broke the game open in the third with a five-run spurt. After Sanford was hit by a pitch to lead off, DeJulio reached on an error as she tried to bunt around. Kristen Uhas singled in Sanford, and Salisbury walked. After Caitlin Keller reached on a fielder's choice to put runners on first and third, Meghan Donoghue stepped in and drilled a three-run home run to left center to give LVC a 7-0 lead.
LVC finished the job with two more runs in the fourth thanks to Uhas' RBI single and a sac fly by Salisbury, and Snyder worked through the fifth to earn the mercy-rule victory.
Game two was a more dramatic affair, with LVC clinging to a 1-0 lead for most of the game. Davies hit her first career home run in the second, a towering solo shot to left, for the lead, and it looked as though a pitchers' duel between Malizzia and Alex Lee would last into the late innings.
However, E-town collapsed defensively in the fifth, committing three straight infield errors to start the inning to load the bases for Chelsea Artz, who doubled to right-center to clear the bases and put LVC up 4-0. Sanford reached on a single, and DeJulio singled in Artz for a 5-0 lead as the Blue Jays pulled Lee for Lisa Malehorn.
Uhas punched a single through the right side to score Sanford and DeJulio, and two batters later, Davies slammed an identical home run to give LVC the 9-0 walk-off win and a chance to win their first Commonwealth Conference championship.
