SALEM, Va. (5/23/15) – The Kean University softball team ended its 2015 season with a 2-0 loss to No. 4 Salisbury University in the 2015 NCAA Division III National Finals on Saturday. The Cougars earned fifth place in the national tournament, marking the best finish in program history.
Kean made some additional history on Saturday. In the seventh inning, Emily Sabo (pictured right) broke up a no-hitter and in the process broke the Kean single-season record she tied last season. That bunt single was her 67th this season and unknotted the sophomore from Megan Cegielski's 2013 total of 66 hits and her own mark of 66 as a rookie last year. In addition, the team set a new record the most walks ever in a season at 124, snapping the 1987 squad's standard. Plus of course, Saturday's game marked the deepest run ever for Kean in the NCAA Tournament.
Senior All-American Courtney Yard (pictured left) pitched well in her final collegiate start, allowing just two runs while surrendering only one extra-base hit. But she was outdueled by another senior All-American hurler, Rachel Johnson, who carried a no-hitter into the final frame.
Yard got into some trouble in the bottom of the first inning. The first two Seagull batters knocked hits and when the count moved to 3-2 on the Salisbury No. 3 hitter, Kean was in danger of loading the bases with nobody out. Yard got that No. 3 hitter flyout to leftfield, but the next player lined a hard linedrive that looked destined to land in right.
But instead Yard's fellow All-American, the second baseman Sabo, leapt up and with a full extension snared the line-drive. She then threw to Cayleen Rizo covering second for the inning-ending double play.
After that initial excitement, Yard and Johnson continued to throw up zeros. Yard had a shutout and did not allow another hit through three innings, while Johnson was perfect until she walked Yard to lead off the fourth. But Johnson struck out the last two Cougars in the inning on six-straight pitches to end the first half of the game scoreless.
In the last of the fourth, the Seagulls started a two-out, two-hit rally to push a run across. Annah Brittingham knocked a ground ball single up the middle with two down, and Molly Simpson laced a double into the left-centerfield gap that chased Brittingham home all the way from first to score the game's first run.
Salisbury threatened again in the fifth when LeAnne Collins singled and stole second to start the frame. After a sac bunt, Yard got a huge strikeout for the second out and then got a popout to Sabo to end the threat and keep the score at 1-0.
The Seagulls used the same offensive formula in the sixth to add an insurance run. Brittingham had a two-out single and came around to score on Simpson's RBI base hit to make the score 2-0 after six.
Sabo's bunt single brought the tying run to the plate in the seventh for Kean, but she advanced no farther and the final score stayed at 2-0.
Click here to see a postgame interview with Yard and head coach Margie Acker
In their second-ever trip to the NCAA Final Site, Kean's only losses came to No. 2 University of Texas at Tyler and No. 4 Salisbury by scores of 1-0 and 2-0, respectively. Yard ends her career with a school-record 1.45 earned run average and perhaps an untouchable career mark of 847 strikeouts.
Salisbury is now 37-7 on the year and will move on to face Texas-Tyler on Sunday.
For her play throughout the tournament, Yard was selected to the NCAA Championship All-Tournament Team.
Saturday's game brings to a close one of the most successful seasons in Cougar softball history. Kean made its second trip ever to the College World Series and its first since 1986. The program was ranked as high as No. 12 in the national poll and doubled its number of all-time All-Americans from two to four this year after Yard's and Sabo's selections. The Cougars will end the year with a 31-15-1 record, just the sixth time in 43 seasons that Kean has broken the 30-win barrier. Kean collected its first-ever victory at the College World Series to clinch the best national finish in program-history.
