Crowder softball falls to Indian Hills in Midwest title game
May 14—NEOSHO, Mo. — The historic season of the Crowder College Roughriders softball team came to an end Sunday afternoon just one game short of a trip to the College World Series.
The Roughriders (45-16) lost 4-1 in their battle with Indian Hills Community College of Iowa in the title game of the Midwest District Championship at Crowder.
But it wasn't the scoreboard in right field that was on coach Josh Barnes' mind after the game. It was his eight sophomores.
"I'm just proud of these sophomores. They've had three losses in two years on this field," Barnes said. "Now they are officially ghostriders, and we are going to be rooting for them on their next stops in whatever they do, but once a Roughrider, always a Roughrider."
Two of those three losses came this weekend at the hands of Indian Hills. The Warriors took the first game of the best-of-three series with the Roughriders on Saturday 8-0 before Crowder regrouped with a 4-3 win to force Sunday's game.
"As a coach, you would take a tie ballgame in the seventh in a do-or-die to go to the national tournament." Barnes said of Sunday's game. "They (Indian Hills) got the breaks in the game, and they made things happen. We didn't quite do that, but we competed until the very end, and that's all you can ask. That's what defined us — our grit."
Indian Hills was on the board first, with a infield RBI single off the bat of Jensyn Jones that scored Julia Kwakernaak, who reached base earlier on a single past short.
The Roughriders answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the frame, when Macie Sawney took the first pitch she saw and sent it past the shortstop to score Laynee Tapp. Tapp reached base earlier on a walk.
The teams remained tied at 1-1 through the middle of the fifth inning, when Mother Nature took over, forcing a 90-minute rain delay. The Crowder players exchanged their cleats for galoshes as they worked to remove large amounts of water from the tarp.
When play resumed, the score remained tied until the top of the seventh inning, when Indian Hills' Claire Tipton hit a sacrifice fly to right field that scored pinch runner Abbi Caraldo from third base.
The Warriors (45-8) made it 4-1 with a two-run jack off the bat of Destiny Lewis that sailed over the left field fence. The Roughriders went down in order in the bottom of the frame, ending their season.
Crowder starter Chelsea Beville ended the season with a 17-5 record giving up eight hits, while striking out five.
Indian Hills' Madie Anderson pitched a complete game, giving up just one hit and striking out three batters. She improved to 19-3 overall.
