UNION, N.J. (5/10/14) – The second-seeded Kean University softball team topped one-seed Lebanon Valley College 3-1 to take the winner's bracket of the 2014 NCAA Division III Softball Championship Union Regional on Saturday morning.
Kean is ranked 19th in the latest National Fastpitch Coaches Association poll, while the Flying Dutchmen were ranked No. 18 nationally.
The Cougars got a rally started in the second inning. Kelly Moorehead continued her torrid hitting with a single to center, and Tiffany Varriello laced one back up the middle to put two runners on for the Cougars. Then with two outs, Tonianne DeMatteo (pictured left) worked a walk to load the bases for catcher Jill Martin.
Martin delivered a clutch basehit into the opposite field that gave Kean a 2-0 lead. They were the first blemishes on Sam Derr's 2014 tournament, as the LVC hurler had thrown a no-hitter in her team's opener on Friday.
Jorey Aumiller created a good scoring chance for the Flying Dutchmen in the second with a two-out double to the leftfield wall, but Kean starter Courtney Yard stranded two runners in scoring position.
Lebanon Valley staged an even greater threat in the third, when the Dutchmen loaded the bases with nobody out and the team's cleanup hitter at the plate. But Yard got a strikeout, popup and grounder to first to wiggle out of trouble for the second-straight inning.
Back-to-back bunt singles – including a career school-record basehit by Katie Deardorff – put two runners on for the Dutchmen with nobody out in the fourth. But again Yard shook off the trouble, getting the next three hitters in a row to keep her shutout intact through four.
In the top half of the fifth, Kean's Emily Sabo lined a single through the left side and stole second base with two outs. Yard came to the plate and roped an RBI single into right field to put the Cougars up three.
LVC finally broke through in the home half of the inning; Allie Hartman bypassed any need for a rally and deposited a homerun on the balcony of the Carole Hynes Field House in right-centerfield to make the score 3-1.
Kean stranded two more runners in the seventh to bring the game total to 11 Flying Dutchmen left on base. Yard finished with eight strikeouts in her 22nd win of the season.
Kean has won the winner's bracket and will advance to Sunday's Championship series, where it will have to be beaten twice.
Lebanon Valley will play again on Saturday at 4 p.m. against the winner of the Husson University – Keene State College elimination game for the right to advance to Sunday as well.
Click here to see a postgame interview with DeMatteo, Martin and Yard.
