LEXINGTON, Ky. ? A six-run second inning propelled visiting Louisville to a 6-1, victory over the University of Kentucky softball team on a bitter-cold evening at the UK Softball Complex Wednesday night. Kentucky?s loss snaps a seven-game winning streak, the second longest such streak in school history.
After a scoreless first inning, Louisville used seven hits and three costly Wildcat errors to jump out to a six-run lead that UK could never overcome. The Cardinals? Colby Wherry singled to start the inning putting a runner on base. The next batter seemed to hit into an apparent double-play situation but, a bad throw to first ended up in the visitors? dugout and the batter advanced to second on the automatic base rule. Kristen Wadwell?s double plated the first run, and then a wild pitch put Wadwell on third. Wadwell scored on another single putting Louisville up 2-0.
Wildcat pitcher Amber Matousek struck out the next batter, moving the out count to two. The Cardinals caught a break when a UK defensive player dropped a foul ball that should have resulted in the inning ending. However, the second error of the inning gave the visitors another shot and they responded with four more runs that included a two-run home run to give them the 6-0 advantage.
?If we catch that out we get out of the inning with just two runs,? said Kentucky Head Coach Rachel Lawson. ?After we missed the pop-up and gave up the home run, they got to go to the top of their order and we?ve just changed the game. Louisville is a really good team, so anytime you spot them runs it is very difficult to come back from.?
Kentucky?s offense scored their run in the bottom of the fourth, but could never put together the offensive fire-power that jolted the seven-game winning streak. The Wildcat offense recorded three hits on the night.
Freshman Sam DeMartine began the fourth inning with a walk to put a runner on base for UK. DeMartine advanced to second on a wild pitch putting her in prime scoring position. The next batter, freshman Annie Rowlands sent a single to left field scoring DeMartine from second. Rowlands used aggressiveness on the base path moving to second as the Cardinals threw home in a failed attempt to catch DeMartine at the plate. Rowlands was able to get to third on a wild pitch, but UK closed the inning on a strike out ending the scoring opportunity.
The RBI single is the sixth run batted in by the first year player in the last two games, as she had five in the UK win over Indiana on Sunday.
Freshman Megan Yocke and sophomore Molly Johnson tallied the other two hits in the third and sixth innings, respectively, for the Wildcats.
?Once they got a lot of runs, our offensive game-plan changed,? Lawson said. ?We couldn?t steal or run as much as we would have liked. She (Kristen Wadwell) is a very good pitcher; she didn?t give us any free passes. We didn?t battle her enough to get a runner on base with either no outs or one out.?
Matousek went the distance for the Wildcats throwing all seven innings, giving up just two earned runs and striking out four batters. The right-hander leads the Wildcat pitching staff with 10 appearances on the year and a team-leading 48 strikeouts. Despite the six-run inning, Matousek returned to the circle and threw five scoreless innings with no batter advancing further than second base the rest of the way.
Kentucky is next in action when they host the Frostbite Classic this weekend. Check www.ukathletics.com for updated coverage and details about the Frostbite Classic.
