Chapman Overcomes Its Anxiety With Victory

It was an anxious Chapman softball team that took the field Friday in the NCAA Division III West Regional tournament. The Panthers had not won since March 30, losing their last five regular-season games.

So the 8-4 victory against Anderson (Ind.) at Hart Park, was the best antidote for Chapman, which is trying to make its fourth appearance in the finals in five years.

What pleased Coach Janet Lloyd the most was the Panthers (29-8) were strong in all phases of the game.

Chapman freshman Tiffany Hoskins (12-3) threw six innings, giving up seven hits and striking out seven before being relieved by Katie Smithson.

The Panthers had 10 hits off Anderson freshman Lori Hostetler (14-4) and reliever Sara Rychener. Four went for extra bases, including a three-run homer by first baseman Stephanie Carew in the fifth to give Chapman a 5-0 lead.

The victory moved Chapman into the winners’ bracket. They will play Pacific Lutheran at noontoday at Hart Park.

“It was real important to win today,” Lloyd said. “We hadn’t won for a while and because of the schedule we had played sporadically the past few weeks. But now that we’ve played this game, I think we’ll be even better tomorrow.”

They should be more relaxed. Hoskins said she and the other starters “were pretty nervous because of the losing streak.” And even when they were ahead by five, Carew said, “we couldn’t relax because we knew teams had come back on us before.”

Anderson (35-9), champions of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference and making its first NCAA tournament appearance, did exactly that in the sixth.

The Ravens had three hits to load the bases with one out. On one of the hits, the Ravens caught a break. Christin Rudell’s hard grounder up the middle struck baserunner Mandy Bontrager on the leg, but because umpire Dave Long ruled the ball was already past Chapman shortstop Cindy Bemis, Bontrager was not ruled out and made it to third safely.

Two RBI singles and two sacrifice flies later, Chapman’s lead was down to 5-4.

But the Panthers came up with three more runs in the bottom of the sixth, to move out of danger.