No. 18 West Chester Advances To Super Regional With Win Over Shepherd

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West Chester Press Conference
Photo Gallery Sunday

WISE, Va. – West Chester put up four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning of game two that erased a two-run deficit and propelled the Golden Rams into the NCAA Division II Super Regionals with a 4-2 victory over Shepherd at Cavalier Field Sunday afternoon.
 
West Chester (47-11) advances to the Super Regional round as the champion of the Atlantic Region 1 pod. The Golden Rams will play West Virginia Wesleyan, which won the Atlantic Region 2 pod on Saturday.
 
The Golden Rams' softball team took to the road this past weekend as the No. 1 overall seed in the Atlantic Region and came away with a 3-1 record in Southern Virginia to move on in the 2017 NCAA Division II Softball Tournament. West Virginia Wesleyan (47-7), the No. 2 overall seed in the Atlantic Region, hosted its pod and went 3-0 to advance.
 
Trailing 2-0 in the bottom half of the sixth, Cat Hammer (Philadelphia, Pa./Archbishop Ryan) and Sara Ercolani (Downingtown, Pa./Downingtown East) each led off with a single to put runners on first and second with nobody out. Shannon Gray (West Chester, Pa./Henderson) was inserted to run for Hammer. She scored on a single by Courtney Stump (Kutztown, Pa./Kutztown) while Ercolani came around on a single by Micaela McSpadden (Spotswood, N.J./Spotswood).
 
Heidi McCollester (West Chester, Pa./Henderson) then hit a sacrifice fly with one out that drove in the eventual game-winning run. Madison Kelly (Whitehall, Pa./Whitehall) followed with a run-scoring single for an insurance tally, before Shepherd got out of the inning.
 
Left-handed ace Amanda Houck (Gap, Pa./Pequea Valley), who had come on with one out in the sixth inning for starter Brooke Harner (Chadds Ford, Pa./Kennett). Houck allowed two runners to reach in the seventh, but got out of the inning without any damage, and West Chester stamped its ticket to the Super Regionals for the second time in four years, and first since 2014.
 
Houck (34-4) threw 1.2 innings of no-hit relief, walking one, to pick up the win. Harner was impressive until running into trouble in the sixth. She threw 5.1 innings, allowing two runs on six hits while walking one and striking out three.
 
Shepherd, needing to sweep two games from West Chester to keep its softball season alive, came away with a 3-2 win in the first game Sunday. The Rams scored all three runs in the fourth inning to come from behind and take a 3-2 lead. From there, right-hander Lori Sturgill (12-5) took the ball and kept the Golden Rams in check the rest of the way.
 
Sarah Walasavage (Minersville, Pa./Minersville) collected three hits while Bri Garber (Willow Street, Pa./Lampeter-Strasburg) had two in the loss.
 
Houck started the game and suffered the loss. She lasted 3.2 innings, yielding three runs on six hits. Harner came on in relief and threw 2.1 scoreless frames, scattering two hits and striking out two.
 
West Chester last reached the Super Regionals in 2014 where it defeated West Virginia Wesleyan 2 games to 1 to advance to the national championships. This year's Best of 3 Super Regional is a rematch from 2014 and gets under way on Thursday, May 18.