West Florida stays perfect at Gulf South Tourney

By By Austin Bishop/EMG regional sports director
May 2, 2004
Three swings of the bat have left the University of West Florida as the only remaining undefeated team in the Gulf South Conference Softball Championship Tournament being played at the Northeast Softball Complex.
UWF belted three solo homers on Saturday afternoon to take a 3-0 win over the University of Southern Arkansas in the winners' bracket finals.
There were two games played before UWF's win and two more scheduled afterwards, but a heavy rainstorm halted those plans.
The eight-team, double-elimination tournament was scheduled to resume today at 11 a.m., beginning with the playing of the two rained out games from Saturday. That would push the championship game back to at least mid-afternoon.
Earlier on Saturday Valdosta State eliminated defending champion Alabama-Huntsville 2-0, and Henderson State sent Lincoln Memorial home by the score of 6-2.
But the highlight of the day was the Southern Arkansas-West Florida showdown, with both coaches saying they expected a low scoring game.
She said it was easy to define the difference in the game.
Southern Arkansas ace pitcher Krystal Poulin who tossed a perfect game on Friday night in the second-round of the tournament struck out 12 batters and allowed just six hits.
And hit them the Argonauts did.
The game was scoreless through four innings, with both teams combining for just four hits.
But with one out, Melanie Reed cranked a Poulin fastball 30 feet beyond the center-field fence to put the winners now 34-18 for the season up 1-0.
Poulin struck out the next batter to strikeout the side and retired the first two batters in the sixth inning, before UWF third baseman Amanda Birdsong lofted a high fly ball to left that just missed the foul pole and cleared the fence by a couple feet to put the Argonauts up 2-0.
Allison Milliman drilled a homer to center with one out in the seventh to put UWF up 3-0.
SAU had its chances to score in the sixth and seventh innings, but starting pitcher Jackie Moore just wouldn't give in.
The Riderettes looked like they were in business in the sixth when the first two runners reached on errors. After a sacrifice bunt moved the runners over, Moore coaxed a pop out from the next hitter before recording a strikeout to end the inning.
The bottom of the seventh started out calm enough, with the first two Southern Arkansas hitters being retired.
But two hit batters and a walk loaded the bases and brought the winning run to the plate. Moore than got SAU lead-off hitter Lauren Frazier to ground out back to the mound to end the game.
Moore struck out seven and allowed only one hit in the game to get the win.
Milliman and Reed had two hits each for the winners.
Valdosta State 2
Alabama-Huntsville 0
The Blazers scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning and then held on for the 2-0 upset win over UAH.
Kelly Summers drew a one-out walk for Valdosta and one out later Linsey Walker ripped a run-scoring double to left. Walker later scored on a throwing error by the UAH shortstop.
Each team had seven hits in the game, with Walker picking up two for Valdosta and Kristin Spencer getting two for Alabama-Huntsville.
Henderson State 6
Lincoln Memorial 2
LMU scored single runs in the second and fifth innings to go up 2-0, before Henderson State scored four times in the fifth to roll to the win.
Both Railsplitter runs came on homers, with Britteny Walker and Judy Hornsby banging out one each.
Grace Powell, Lindsey Causey and Holly Hughes had two hits each for the HSU Reddies.