Lady Tigers score late, finish regular season with wins at Labette
Following a rough stretch of games against some of the top teams in the conference, the No. 18-ranked Cowley College softball team picked up a pair of hard-fought victories at Labette on Wednesday. The Lady Tigers needed extra innings to win the opener 6-4 before scoring three runs in its final at-bat to win game two 7-4.
Cowley finishes the regular season with a record of 40-15 overall and 17-5 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. The Lady Tigers are currently in fifth place in the conference but have an opportunity to move up to third following games between Fort Scott and Kansas City.
Labette finishes the regular season with a record of 19-27 overall and 9-13 in the conference.
Trailing Labette 4-3 in Wednesday's opener, Cowley scratched across the tying run in the sixth inning and then won the game with a pair of runs in the top of the eighth inning.
Jaiden Swanson went the first four innings on the mound for the Tigers before Mikah Vann came on to earn the win in relief. Vann allowed only one hit in four innings while striking out three and walking one.
Lyric Perry homered for Cowley and had two hits, while Harper Hancock and Shayne Roberts each doubled and had two hits.
"We had some big clutch at-bats from Lyric, Shayne, and Harper," Cowley head coach Jenny Hoyt said.
Game two was another nail-biter, with Cowley rallying from a 4-0 deficit to tie the game at 4-4 with four runs in the top of the fourth inning.
The game would remain tied until the top of the seventh inning when Cowley scored three runs to win 7-4.
Alissa Nuno went the first three innings on the mound for Cowley and allowed six hits and four runs before Vann (20-6) came back in relief and was equally dominant as in game one, allowing only one hit while striking out six in four innings pitched.
"I thought Mikah had great outings in relief," Hoyt said. "She came in and did well in shutting down the momentum of Labette."
Jamie Molina led the Tigers' 13-hit attack by going 3-for-4 with a run batted in.
Cowley will prepare to play in the Region Tournament beginning Wednesday, May 8, in Topeka, KS.
"We need to go into this next week before playoffs sharpening up in some areas on defense and continue to build confidence in our offense," Hoyt said.
Score by inning:
Game one R H E
Cowley 0 3 0 0 0 1 0 2 – 6 9 0
Labette 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 – 4 8 0
Game two R H E
Cowley 0 0 0 4 0 0 3 – 7 13 3
Labette 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 – 4 7 0