After last night's losses, I wasn't entirely looking forward to today's double
header. The Aggies now needed to win
both games against Seattle U to win
the regular season WAC title. This was the team that was three outs from a
championship, up 3 runs in the seventh, and lost to the Aggies in last year's
tournament (5-13-17), so they are aching for revenge. Ron was in a much better mood thankfully when
he picked me up. After a tasty lunch at Schlotzsky's, we were both in a good
mood. During this time, Aggie Baseball started their game
against GCU in Phoenix. The Aggies went up an early 3-0 when I
started listening on the radio. With
that, we made our way to the softball field.
Pulling into the parking
lot, I noticed people out on the next door soccer pitch. A mixed group there was practicing driving
with their golf clubs. (There’s a totally vacant practice field on the other side of the
softball stadium. I don’t know why you wouldn’t use that instead.) After parking, I saw an Aggie Soccer player in uniform going towards the field, but I never
saw anyone playing. (I’ve been checking their Twitter feed to see if they’ll be playing an exhibition game this spring.) I got to chat with the pretty ticket taker
from the baseball stadium (4-15-18) for a moment. Inside, they were handing out tickets for a
tandem field seat giveaway, and there was the final Aggie pennant giveaway. I didn’t get one there, but Ron did. I got one as I was leaving the stadium when I
found a discarded one.
It was a warm,
sunny day in the high 80's, but with a good breeze blowing in, so it wasn't
uncomfortable. It particularly wasn't
too bad since I was sitting in Ron's shadow while he was holding an umbrella. Out on the field though, Aggie pitcher Kayla Green looked hot. Well, you can take that statement however you
want. The girls gathered together after
warming up, and as the Aggie fight song played, they uncharacteristically
clapped and sang along with it. There
was a good crowd on hand to watch this game.
As it was Senior Day, Amy
Bergeson’s dad was there. He threw out the first pitch and got a huge
cheer from the crowd and players.
Samaria Diaz
started for the Aggies and worked a quick first. Rachel
Rodriguez got it started for the Aggies in the bottom. The dugout had an abundance of spirit going
right from the beginning and were in fine voice with their singing. (So were the Redhawks. They have their
own rituals.) Aggie Baseball was now up
6-0 in the fourth (yes, we were still listening to that game on the radio). The sun was playing peek-a-boo with the
clouds, giving some relief from the heat.
Rachel singled up the middle. An
error at second on Kelsey Horton's
at bat put two on. Fahren Glackin walked next to load the bases. 
Victoria Castro
singled to drive in one run. Amy hit a
weak grounder on the infield. The throw
came home, but the catcher, Bailey
Thompson, missed touching the plate and another run scored. (She’s also one of the tallest players on
the team. Another tall catcher. Also, good looking.) Next, Shelby
Shultes' liner was dropped by the first baseman, Madison Cathcart, by the base.
Amy started to go back to the base, thinking it would be caught, as
Madison stepped on the bag for one out.
Amy took off for second and was thrown out there. Inning over.
2-0 Aggies.
What
happened next, I've never seen or heard of happening before. Some fans started yelling at the ump. Motioning at the scoreboard, they yelled,
“That should be three, ump!” This was
said a couple of times, before ump looked at the scoreboard and then motioned
to the pressbox. He held up three
fingers. The scoreboard changed to 3-0
Aggies. What I'd interpreted as bad
baserunning by Amy (and maybe it actually was), had allowed the inning to
continue long enough for Fahern to cross the plate before Amy was out. How about that?
There were some
SU fans around us and some more came in and sat by us. One lady had a foam finger and pom-poms no
less. There weren't any problems, but we
were surrounded by people cheering for the other team. They had something to cheer for immediately
as Kaylee Ree hit a leadoff
homerun. After a hit batter, a throwing
error on a comebacker, and a walk to load the bases, it looked like Sam was on
the ropes. She got it together with a
strikeout and a popup to end the inning.
3-1 Aggies.
Back in Phoenix, Caleb Henderson homered to make it 9-0
in the fifth. Back to Las Cruces in the
bottom of the second, Caity Szczesny
hammered one off her foot. The ump took
a ball out to the pitcher to let her walk it off. Rachel came up with two outs and hit a
grounder up the middle, right where she did the last inning. Kelsey came up next and homered. I’m out of things to say about Kelsey’s greatness. Suffice
to say, exactly nobody is surprised when she homers. In the stands, a guy that’s probably another Aggie athlete, fired a bubble gun into
the crowd to celebrate. I thought this
was a gun-free zone. I’m traumatized. I need
a safe space and holistic healing.
Fahren came up next and collected another bruise from a pitch. She’s a magnet. 5-1 Aggies.
The tandem
stadium seat giveaway happened before the fourth. We didn’t win.
I would have asked if we could sit in the outfield on it. That would have been great. Sam was really throwing hard this inning. They had a radar gun at the table behind home
plate, but no crowd display for the readings.
I could hear how hard she was hitting the catcher’s mitt. Tori made a
pair of great catches in deep centerfield to end the inning. She came up first in the bottom and beat out
an infield single. Cathcart actually did
the splits at first, trying to stretch and get the out. Caity would drive her in later. 6-1 Aggies.
“Logan
Ehnes has hit one to
his old front yard in Phoenix!”
That was apparently a tremendous home run for the Aggies there. They won 13-1
in a seven-inning run-ruled game. Jonathan Groff got the complete game
victory. I put the radio away and
concentrated on the game in front of me.
Caity would come
up big in the fourth with running catch on a liner in front of her. In the bottom, Fahren got on without getting
plunked via a hit. Nikki Butler drove her and herself in with a line drive home run to
left field. 8-1 Aggies.
Sam started off
the fifth by spearing a liner, but then walked the next two batters. Analise
de la Roca came in in relief. She
threw hard as usual, but worked in an offspeed.
It wasn’t a great one, but kept the hitters a
little off-balance. Amy made a great
running catch on a foul to help end the inning.
Not that there’s a huge amount of tension in an 8-1 game, but the crowd was
anticipating a possible run-rule win with one more run. Shelby led off with a single. Jeanelle
Medina sacrificed her over. I think
she lost her bubblegum cards out of her back pocket running to first. (Are her and Kelsey trading cards between
innings?) Caity walked next. Rachel came up and the dugout was clapping
for her. The Redhawks played the
outfield on the infield for her. She
lined out to the pitcher. Kelsey was
given a semi-intentional walk to load the bases. Fahren came up and did what she does best:
get free passes to first. In this case,
it was a walk-off walk that forced in the winning run. Aggies
win 9-1.
Let’s handout gameballs to Kelsey
Horton and Nikki Butler for
driving in two runs each. Samaria Diaz got the win, throwing 4
1/3 and only giving up two hits and one run.
She looked good and didn’t get rattled. Good defense also helped.
Now it was down
to one game to decide the WAC regular season champion.
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