Louisiana TKO Ends Softball's Best Season Since 2003

The Texas State softball team came into Sunday's game against the #25 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns with the knowledge that they had to crank out three huge wins in a row that afternoon if they wanted a shot at getting to the Ann Arbor Super Regional in the NCAA Tournament. However, ULL starting pitcher Ashley Brignac put any hopes of a frenzied Bobcat run to rest as she struck out 10 Texas State batters and only allowed one hit in 6 innings while the Cajun offense teed off on a tired Chandler Hall to take a 5-0 victory in Waco.

Despite the box score showing domination by ULL in most statistical categories, Texas State kept themselves in this game until the 5th inning, not unlike how they kept themselves afloat against Baylor the day before until the 5th in that game as well. Brignac, who led the Ragin Cajuns to a College World Series appearance last year before being hampered by tendonitis absolutely shut down the Bobcat hitters at first as she struck out the first 5 of 6 batters she faced. A Jenna Emery hit in the top of the 5th inning as well as some minor control issues on Brignac's part gave Texas State a glimmer of hope with only a 1-0 deficit to work with, but that glimmer was quickly blotted out as two of the next three batters struck out and the Cajun offense finally struck.

Coach Woodard had decided beforehand to go with a bold move in riding Chandler Hall's arm until it fell off instead of inserting Katie Garnett or Elizabeth Dennis into the starting pitcher's position, and frankly, with how well Hall had been pitching in the past few weeks, why not? However, Hall's fatigue might have caught up to her as she gave up 5 earned runs on six hits, most of them coming in the bottom of the 5th. Two errors by Alex Newton and C. Hall advanced runners into scoring position, and a 2-RBI single by Melissa Verde as well as a 2-run homer by catcher Lana Bowers put a serious dent in the Bobcats' comeback hopes. In fact, that's not all that Bowers dented, her homer ended up bouncing off of play-by-play announcer Mason Robinson's truck. Insult to injury, anyone?

Katie Garnett replaced Hall on the pitcher's circle in the 6th inning and did a fine job of keeping the Louisiana offense at bay, but by that time the damage was done. The Bobcats couldn't keep their small bit of offensive momentum from the last inning going and went out with a whimper in the 6th and 7th innings as relief pitcher Brittany Cuevas closed the game out to make sure that Brignac (8-2, 0.17 ERA) didn't re-aggravate her tendonitis. Chandler Hall saw her overall record drop to 25-11 with a 1.17 ERA.

Despite a frustrating finish for this Texas State team, they can still keep their heads high. They got to an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2003, and made some noise while they were there. They were able to assist in knocking off the 12-seeded Northwestern Wildcats with an 8-0 rout in their first game on Friday (ULL finished the job on Saturday), and they also were able to win both the Southland Conference regular season and tournament titles outright for the first time since 2001. Additionally, their impressive 40-18 overall record is the third best record by any Texas State softball team in history. The team will lose a lot of important seniors including Alex Newton, Ryan Kos, Katie Garnett and Taylor Hall, but future is bright for this Bobcat team as players like Leah Boatright, Megan Parten, Allyce Rother, Jenna Emery, McKenzie Baack and of course pitching sensation Chandler Hall will be back next season. Tune in next spring on 89.9 KTSW as we will continue to bring you action from around the diamond.

- Will Butler, KTSW Sports Director/Blog Editor