By Adam MacDonald
VALDOSTA – Brianna Collis outdueled Nova Southeastern’s Lexi Sarradet, and the Valdosta State softball team advanced to the finals of the second portion of Division II South Regional with a 1-0 win over the Sharks on Saturday at the VSU Softball Complex.
Collis pitched six innings of shutout ball and struck out three batters to improve to 16-1.
Holly Satterfield picked up her second save of the season by retiring the last three batters of the game. She entered the game in the bottom of the seventh with a runner on first, retired the first hitter on a sacrifice bunt and struck out the final two batters.
With one out in the top of third, Alyssa Shirey singled through the left side of the infield, and Andi Braswell came home to score from third for the game’s only run. Braswell reached first on a walk, stole second and advanced to third on an infield single by Marti Littlefield.
“The pressure was on, but we love being on our home field, with all our fans supporting us,” Collis said. “We knew we would have to manufacture some runs, and we got one.”
With the win, the Lady Blazers improved to 2-0 in the South Regional. They will play Nova again in the championship game today at 1:30 p.m. at the VSU Softball Complex. Nova won an elimination game against Florida Southern Saturday night to get a rematch with the Lady Blazers. Since it is a double-elimination tournament, the Lady Blazers only need to beat Nova once, while the Sharks will have to beat the Lady Blazers twice to win the second portion of the South Regional.
The winner of this portion of the South Regional will play the winner of the other portion of the South Regional next week. The teams in the other South Regional are Alabama-Huntsville, Rollins, Barry and Miles.
“We’ve never been in this position before. It feels great,” Collis said. “We’re confident, confident, confident. We feel great about it.”
While Collis came up big for the Lady Blazers, Sarradet was equally as good. Sarradet (25-7) went all seven innings, gave up five hits and struck out 10. However, she walked Braswell to lead off the third, the only walk she allowed all day, and it proved costly.
That wasn’t the only mistake made by Sharks (49-14). Although they committed one error in the field, which didn’t cost them the run, they made two critical base running errors.
Noemi Luciani led off the bottom of the first with a bunt single and advanced to second on a throwing error by Collis. Luciani moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Rachel Talenfeld. April Donachie followed with a ground ball back to Collis. Luciani mistakenly tried to go home, and got caught in a rundown. Luciani kept the rundown going long enough to allow Donachie to advance all the way to third, but was eventually tagged out. Donachie was stranded on third when Lauren Lopez flew out to center to end the inning.
The Sharks had their best chance to score in the bottom of the third. Their first three batters reached base on singles, and the bases were loaded with no outs. Collis buckled down and got Talenfeld to strike out for the first out. Donachie hit a hard line drive to right that was caught by Shirey, but Katie Pepper, who was on third, wandered too far down the line and couldn’t get back to third in time to try to tag up and score.
“Alyssa has a cannon of an arm, so it’s probably smarter that she didn’t (tag),” Collis said.
Lopez then struck out to end the bases-loaded threat.
“I was just hoping I wouldn’t hit anybody, honestly,” Collis said. “I tried to get them to chase some pitches and let the defense get some outs. I just try to keep battling when things like that happen.”
The third inning turned out to be Nova’s best chance, because after that, Collis settled in. She retired 11 of the next 12 batters she faced. The only one she did not get out reached on an error by Braswell at third base. Collis recovered to get the next four batters in a row, but was lifted for Satterfield with no outs in the seventh when Brittney Lamb reached safely on an error at short by Littlefield.
Satterfield had no problems closing out the game, as she faced the minimum number of batters.
It was a banner day for Collis, who has been hampered by injuries late in the previous seasons.
“I feel really good, actually,” Collis said. “(Head coach Thomas Macera) has saved me a little bit. I didn’t throw as much during the regular season, but I feel great. Our whole pitching staff has done well.”
In the second game of the day, Florida Southern eliminated Tampa in the loser’s bracket. Florida Southern then had to turn around and play Nova in another elimination game. Nova had beaten Florida Southern 2-0 on Friday night.
In the rematch Saturday night, the Sharks beat the Mocs 5-1 behind another strong pitching performance. Dani Caron pitched 5.2 innings and allowed a run in the first inning. Sarradet came out of the bullpen to pitch the final 1.1 innings and pick up the save.
The Sharks broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the third on back-to-back solo home runs by Donachie and Lopez. The Sharks added two insurance runs in the seventh to put the game out of reach.
The Lady Blazers and the Sharks will play for the fourth time this season. VSU leads the season series 3-1.
