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The last home series of the season for the Lady Buffs was a weekend full of important events for the team on April 20-21. The “Strike Out Cancer” weekend sponsored by Texas Oncology was also senior weekend and a battle for the second spot in the Lone Star Conference standings.
Texas Woman’s University started the scoring in-game one on Friday night. WTAMU wouldn’t let the Pioneers take a breath, scoring two runs in the second for a 3-1 lead. The next few innings was a battle of wills as TWU picked up four runs to take a 5-3 lead before WT tied up the game. The Lady Buffs ended the scoring in the fourth inning, taking an 8-5 lead that would hold for the rest of the seven-inning game.
TWU started the second Friday night game scoring in the first inning. The teams battled back and forth throughout the game to get the lead. It looked like WT would pick up the win in the fifth inning when they took a 5-4 lead due to an incorrect scorecard and added another run in the six inning. However, the Pioneers came back and score five runs in the seventh to win the game 9-6. Senior Marci Womack was recorded as the pitcher for both of Friday night’s games, taking her record to 19-9.“We played six pretty good innings tonight, but we didn’t finish the seventh inning,” Head Coach Kevin Blaskowski said. “They have momentum now. They came and took a game away from us in the seventh inning so they are going to carry the momentum into the series finale tomorrow.”
Blaskowski’s words rang true as the Saturday game got started. The Pioneers again scored first, picking up three runs early in the second inning. The three runs would force Womack out of her final home game after just an inning and a half. By the end of the inning, the score would be 4-0. The game continued to go TWU’s way as they scored eight more runs in the five remaining innings, leaving the Lady Buffs with a score of 12-0 to try and overcome in the bottom of the inning.
The Lady Buffs got four runs on the board in the final minutes of the game, but it wasn’t enough for the team and they dropped the game 12-4 giving them a series loss of 2-1. The Saturday loss was the Lady Buffs’ first since 2008. Womack picked up the loss in the circle for the third game of the series, but both Amber Spencer and Adriana Garcia made an appearance in the circle during the game.
The weekend ended with a ceremony honoring the team’s five seniors. The team also presented senior Kim LeComte with a banner on the centerfield fence honoring her career accomplishments at WT.
“It’s crazy, I had no idea [about the banner],” LeComte said. “That’s something growing up, watching sports, that you see all the time happening to the big name players, but you never think it’s going to happen to you. It’s awesome, it’s unreal.”
The team will travel to Edmond, Okla., on April 24 for a double-header before heading to Denton, Texas for the 2012 LSC Tournament on April 26-28. WT will enter the tournament as the No. 6 seed and take on Abilene Christian at 4:30 p.m. on April 27.
“We got to take it one game at a time and we have to stay focused if we want to make the NCAA tournament,” LeComte said. “We’ve got to win one game at a time to get up in the regional rankings. I think that if we play with the mentality that do-or-die, I think that we can win the tournament.”
