WNC falls flat against Snow

After watching her team blow the second game of Friday's doubleheader, WNC softball coach Leah Wentworth expected her team to come out with some fire in Saturday's doubleheader against Snow College.

What she actually got was an uninspired effort.

Snow rolled to a 16-3 win in the five-inning opener and then completed the Scenic West Conference sweep with a 6-2 win in the nightcap at Edmonds Sports Complex.

The losses dropped WNC to 7-8 in conference play heading into next week's four-game road series against College of Southern Nevada.

"I did (expect more) today," Wentworth said. "They have done a great job of bouncing back and coming back really strong. I thought we would have a tremendous amount of fire and come out ready to go today."

In the first game, WNC didn't pitch, hit or field well (6 errors). In the second game, the Wildcats got six strong innings from Jordan Garcia, but hardly any hitting.

In the four-game series, WNC was outscored 35-16. On Saturday alone, WNC managed just nine hits in the two games and left 17 runners on base. WNC was 3-for-19 with runners in scoring position. Not clutch at all.

"We didn't really bring out here what we worked on all last week," Wentworth said. "We left a lot of runners on (in both games). The first game we weren't swinging the bat. We struck out several times looking (11 totals). We made better adjustments in the second game."

Snow's Katie Greenberg, who beat WNC in the nightcap on Friday, fanned 11 and walked five. She was able to make big pitches when she needed to.

Greenberg got plenty of offensive support as her teammates scored three in the first, two in the second and one in the third to take a quick 6-0 lead. Lexi Alley worked the first two, allowing five runs on eight hits.

WNC closed the gap to 6-1 in the third when Alia Cox singled and eventually scored on Ali Lostra's bad-hop single between first and second.

Snow exploded for six in the fourth to maker it 12-1, and then added four in the fifth. In those two innings alone, WNC made four errors.

WNC scored its final two runs in the bottom of the fifth when Katirina Rand hit a one-out single to score Taleas Marble and Emily Nagel, who had reached on a walk and single, respectively.

In the second game, Kimber Choffin, who yielded eight runs to WNC on Friday, threw a superb game for 6.2 innings. She fanned three and walked six before turning the ball over to Greenberg, who got the last out of the game.

Choffin was given a quick 3-0 lead thanks to a run-coring double in the first by Allee Carter and two unearned runs in the second when Garcia made a fielding error in the circle.

Choffin held WNC hitless through the first four innings, allowing just three baserunners.

WNC threatened in the bottom of the fifth when Nagel singled and reached third on a single by Jordan Thomas. Melanie Pfeiffer grounded out to end the inning.

Garcia was lifted in the sixth after allowing a one-out double to left-centerfield. Alley came on and gave up a two-out, run-scoring single to Kelsey Simmonds to make it 5-0.

WNC tallied twice in the bottom of the inning, one coming on Lostra's single and the other on a fielder's choice.

Snow scored two more in the seventh to make it 6-2, but that's when Choffin ran out of gas. With two outs, she walked three straight batters to load the bases. That brought up Marble, who played at Snow a year ago, as the potential tying run, Greenberg retired the dangerous clean-up hitter on a soft pop-up to second to end the game.

WNC played without lead-off hitter Jenny Quam, who was hit by a pitch in the second game on Friday. She was at the field on Saturday but left before the second game ended to go to the hospital for evaluation. Wentworth said that Quam was feeling a bit woozy. Her status for the CSN series is unknown at this time.