With winds gusting between 30-40 mph and the mercury struggling to rise above 50 degrees, Saturday in Granville would have been a great time to curl up with a hot cup of cocoa and spend the day indoors.
Trailing Ohio Wesleyan 4-0 heading to the seventh and final inning of Saturday's first elimination game, the Big Red refused to spend the remainder of their day inside the comforts of a Denison dormitory pondering what might have been. Instead, they mounted an improbable 5-run rally to stun Ohio Wesleyan, and rode that momentum to a pair of victories over Wittenberg to lock up the program's fifth North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament championship.
This was the first time in the 10-year history of the NCAC Softball Tournament that a team came out of the losers bracket to win the title. In fact, this marked just the fourth time that the tournament needed the seventh and final game to crown a champion. With the victory, Denison receives the conference automatic qualifier to the 2010 NCAA Division III Championship Tournament next weekend at a site to be determined. This will be DU's fifth NCAA appearance.
In a tournament which saw Denison compete in five of the seven games played, there were plenty of stars for the Big Red, but none were bigger that the performances turned in by senior pitchers Samantha Rumschlag (Carmel, Ind./Cathedral) and Leslie Brenner (Deerfield, Ill./Deerfield).
Rumschlag, who returned from an injury that sidelined her for more than a month just last week, pitched 13.1 innings on Saturday, allowing just three earned runs and was the winning pitcher in all three games on Saturday. Brenner also pitched in all three contests, allowing only one earned run over 7.2 innings pitched.
In that pivotal seventh inning versus Ohio Wesleyan, Denison's Molly Sack (Toledo, Ohio/Sylvania Southview) led off with a single and Lauren Lynn (Cincinnati, Ohio/Sycamore) followed with a one-out single to left, moving Sack to second base. Emily Croll (Oak Harbor, Ohio/Oak Harbor) would follow with a ground ball back to the pitcher who fielded the ball cleanly but sent an errant throw to first, allowing Sack to score and Lynn to move to third base. Now, with just one out and two runners on base, Bishop pitcher Rachel Seibel was left to face the heart of the DU batting order.
Erica Evans (Worthington, Ohio/Thomas Worthington) struck first with a single to left field, cutting the deficit to 4-3. Brie Berkopec (Mars, Pa./Mars Senior) laced a single to center and both Evans and Berkopec would move into scoring position following a passed ball. That set the stage for Alex Murray (Cleveland Heights, Ohio/NDCL) who has never met an RBI opportunity she didn't like. Murray jumped all over an early offering from Seibel and singled to center field. The ball was mishandled by the center fielder which allowed Berkopec to score the winning run from second base and keep Denison's season alive.
In game six of the tournament, DU would square off against the same Wittenberg team who sent them to the losers bracket in their opener on Friday. Rumschlag allowed only four hits and one run in four innings and Brenner fanned four over the final three innings to earn her first save of the season. Denison got a pair of RBI singles from Sack and Jessica Robertson (Mt. Gilead, Ohio/Mt. Gilead) was 3-for-4 with one run scored.
In the seventh and final game of the tournament, head coach Tiffany Ozbun turned to Brenner who was outstanding in her three innings of work. Berkopec gave her team a 2-0 lead in the first inning when she homered over the wall in right field. The home run was the 10th of the season for Berkopec, which breaks the NCAC single-season record.
In the fifth, Denison would add a run off a sacrifice fly by Robertson but the Tigers would mount a comeback in the top of the sixth. Facing Rumschlag, who entered the game in the fourth inning, Wittenberg's Jessi Allen smacked an RBI single through the left side of the infield and Jade Chivington followed with a double to the gap in left center, cutting the Denison lead to 3-2.
DU would answer in the home half of the sixth when Lynn hit a towering 3-run home run over the wall in left field, providing her team with some much needed insurance runs. In the seventh, the Tigers managed one base runner but Rumschlag would induce a fly-out and two ground outs to clinch the win for Denison.
Denison landed six members on the all-tournament team and Rumschlag was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player after going 3-1 with a 1.35 ERA in 20.2 innings pitched. She also struck out 15 batters while walking only four. Joining Rumschlag on the all-tournament team was Robertson (.429 BA), Murray (.400 BA), Berkopec (.389 BA, 2 2B, 1 HR), Lynn (.429 BA, 4 RBI, 1 HR), and Brenner (1-0, 1.47 ERA, 1 SV).
Denison improves to 30-15 with the three victories, marking the fourth 30-win season in the history of the program. The NCAA Division III Tournament Selection Show will air live on the internet at www.ncaa.com on Monday (May 10) at 12 p.m.
