Box Score by Alex Cooper, sports information student assistant
DAHLONEGA, Ga. – In a game that lasted 12 innings and almost four hours, the Georgia College softball team (47-10) could not close the door on the University of North Georgia Nighthawks (48-7), falling 9-5 on a walk-off grand slam in the 12th inning.
This was the longest game for Bobcat softball since April 10, 2013 when they won a 12-inning affair over USC Aiken.
Georgia College took their first lead of the season over the Nighthawks in the fourth inning on a Faith Flanders (Dublin) three-run homerun, her fifth of the season. Flanders was the only Bobcat to record a multi-hit game, going 2-for-6 with a run scored and three RBIs.
The Bobcats stretched the lead to 4-0 in the top of the sixth when junior Lacey Najafi (Suwanee) doubled down the right field line, plating Holland Coursey (Sugar Hill).
The Nighthawks did not go quietly, scoring four runs of their own in the bottom of the sixth to knot the game at four apiece, the tying run crossing the plate on a controversial illegal pitch call.
Both teams would go scoreless from innings seven through 11. Georgia College used both Marisa Boyette (Marietta) and Carly Lewis (Seymour, Tennessee) in the circle, throwing a total of 254 pitches. Boyette started the game and then reentered in the 11th inning. Lewis tossed five and 1/3 shutout innings in the middle of the game, surrendering just four hits.
When Boyette came on in relief in the 11th, she worked out of a bases loaded, one-out jam. The ball would fall the other way in the 12th, when North Georgia loaded the bases with two outs. Boyette would come within one strike of sending Georgia College home with a victory before Tiffany Burns smacked a walk-off grand slam over the left field fence. Boyette took the loss, moving to 24-6 on the season. The junior allowed nine runs on eight hits.
If the Bobcats want to advance to the College World Series in Oklahoma City, they will be forced to knock off the Nighthawks twice tomorrow at 1 and 3:30 p.m.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, two-time winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 11 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at @GCBobcats on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit GCBobcats.PhotoReflect.com to purchase photo prints from home athletic contests.
