Jacksonville, Fla. – The North Florida softball team was defeated by both Virginia Tech and Jacksonville State on the final day of competition in their Home Tournament this Saturday.
The Ospreys (7-2) earned their first loss of the season to unbeaten Virginia Tech 7-4 and then dropped the late game to Jacksonville State 6-5 in nine innings.
"We had ourselves in position to win both games," said coach
Marcie Hickey. "In the game against Virginia Tech we came out strong and had runners in scoring position a few times, but couldn't come up with the hit we needed to score them."
In the first game of the day against Virginia Tech, the Ospreys jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the first inning off of three consecutive RBI singles by junior
Katie Mandigo, freshman
Ashley Niesman, and senior
Abby Tewey.
The lead was quickly relinquished in the next half inning as the Hokies put across four runs in the top of the second inning and another two runs in the top of the third inning.
North Florida made the score 6-4 with an RBI single from
Stacy McClelland in the bottom of the third, but weren't able to string together more hits to close the gap.
Virginia Tech added an insurance run in the top of the seventh inning with a solo home run over the right-center fence.
Senior
Kayla Goff earned her first loss of the year and her first earned runs of the year in the defeat.
In the second game of the day against Jacksonville State, costly errors led to a 5-1 lead for Jacksonville State going into the top of the seventh inning. The Ospreys battled back and tied it to force extras off of a two-RBI double by Mandigo and an RBI single by freshman
Stephanie Schmidt.
"In the second game we just made too many mistakes," added Hickey. "We started the game sloppy but battled our way back in the 7th to force extra innings. We played great at down the stretch but put ourselves in too much of a hole early."
Jacksonville State clinched a walk-off win when senior
Kaylie Wallace walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, ending the game with a final of 6-5.
The Ospreys are back in action at the UNF Softball Complex this Tuesday when they face FAMU at 5 p.m.
For the latest news and updates on the UNF Softball team, follow @OspreySB on Twitter.
