The Fort Lewis College softball team suffered a pair of tough losses Friday in the final series of the season, but all playoff hopes are not yet lost.
FLC fell 3-0 and 11-1 to Dixie State on Friday and will meet the Trailblazers again at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday for the final doubleheader of the regular season. To reach the eighth-and-final seed for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament, the Skyhawks will need to win both games and have Adams State lose both Saturday games against University of Colorado at Colorado as well as CSU-Pueblo lose two games to Colorado School of Mines and have Chadron State do no better than a split with Black Hills State. It’s a tall order, and the Skyhawks will hope to find some magic at home Saturday at Aspen Field.
During Friday’s games, All-American pitcher Cambrie Hazel held FLC (16-34, 11-26 RMAC) to only one hit and two baserunners in the game. The game was 0-0 until the top of the fourth inning, when Dixie State (34-10, 28-9 RMAC) scored two runs on FLC starting pitcher Kassidy Trumbo (4-11). That’s all the run support Hazel (15-5) needed. She struck out 13 Skyhawks and walked one. FLC senior Angelique Elemen had the lone FLC hit, a double, while Pilar Gutierrez drew a walk.
Dixie State scored runs in the fourth game on singles from Taylor Godfrey and Mikaela Thomson. A triple from Kori Gahn in the fifth inning scored Bailey Gaffin to give Dixie State a 3-0 lead.
Trumbo worked around seven hits and three walks to hold Dixie State to three runs. She struck out five.
In Game 2, Carissa Burgess (19-4) pitched Dixie to another win, as Kelly Decker (2-12) took the loss in the pitcher’s circle for FLC.
Dixie State took an early 2-0 lead behind a Thomson RBI-single and a walk that brought in a run. FLC got one back in the bottom of the first when Gutierrez’s sacrifice bunt brought in Taylor Hollestelle.
But that would be the lone run in the five-inning loss for FLC. Burgess allowed only two hits.
Burgess struck out six and didn’t issue a walk, though she hit one batter. Decker went 2 1/3 innings and gave up seven runs on six hits, four walks and a hit batter. Emily Morris pitched an inning of relief and allowed four runs on five hits. Mackenzie Parks pitched 1 2/3 innings and allowed no runs and only one hit and one walk. Dixie State did not strike out once in the game.
The FLC women’s lacrosse team got to finish the season Friday after it had to forfeit a pair of games a week earlier because it didn’t have enough healthy players to compete.
Friday’s finale was a tough one, as the Skyhawks (2-7, 2-6 RMAC) fell 19-1 to No. 15 Colorado Mesa University (13-2, 7-2 RMAC) in Grand Junction.
FLC went down 11-0 at halftime but got a second-half goal from Delaney Benson. The Skyhawks were outshot 44-11 in the match, while MEsa put 33 shots on goal to only five for FLC. Mesa was perfect on 23-of-23 clears and won 15-of-22 draw controls. FLC turned it over 28 times.
Danielle Simpson led the Mavericks with five goals, while Marissa Leonardi added three. Daris Wienk made 14 saves in goal for FLC, while Lula Mitchell made three for Mesa.
For the first time in program history, FLC missed out on the RMAC tournament.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
