May 20, 2017 HIGHLIGHTS
POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
For 5 2/3 innings, all Baylor softball had to show against James Madison pitcher Megan Good was a line-drive single by Lindsey Cargill in the first and Kyla Walker's bunt single in the fourth.
Down to their last four outs in Saturday's NCAA Waco Regional matchup at Getterman Stadium, the top-seeded Lady Bears trailed 2-1.
But, in the blink of an eye, the game turned completely around.
After Walker reached on a flubber out in front of the plate and Ari Hawkins followed with a sharp single up the middle, Shelby Friudenberg launched a three-run shot off the NCAA Softball sign in center field as Baylor rallied for a 4-2 win over the Dukes to reach Sunday's 1 p.m. region final.
"I told (associate head coach Mark Lumley) in the fifth inning, this one run's not going to win the ball game for them," Baylor head coach Glenn Moore said. "I didn't have a crystal ball, you just kind of get a feel from their approaches, their at-bats, their attitudes. And I just felt like we were going to make a run, eventually."
It was just the second loss for Good (37-2), a junior All-American who allowed four runs on six hits and no walks with two strikeouts in six innings.
"The whole game was a dogfight," said Good, who had won 19 in a row. "I knew (Friudenberg) hit it hard. With that field and the wind, I was hoping, but it didn't go our way."
Friudenberg swung at a first-pitch riseball from Good, with an atypical north wind actually helping blow it out of the park for her 10th home run of the season and 39th of her career.
"It felt a little bit jammed, almost, so I was a little bit nervous that they were going to catch it in the outfield," said Friudenberg, who became the third player in program history to hit double-digit homers in a season three times, joining Chelsi Lake and Brette Reagan. "At Getterman, you never know if the wind's going to catch it. And it didn't catch it, thankfully."
When the ball bounced back in play, and none of the umpires signaled a home run, Friudenberg said, "Umm, I'm going to run really fast until they say something.' So, I just kept running."
Baylor (45-12) actually took the lead in the first. Cargill lined a first-pitch single to center, moved over to third on a pair of groundouts and scored on a wild pitch.
The Dukes' Taylor Newton led off the second with a triple off the wall in left-center field. But, Kelsee Selman (23-8) worked out of the jam, getting a groundout and pop-up and striking out Madison Naujokas.
Selman said there was a "little confusion with the pitch call" that led to the triple, "but that didn't happen again."
When his senior pitcher left the runner stranded at third, Moore said, "I knew right then that she was locked-in and poised to have a good game."
"They're a good-hitting team, so at any time they can get a rally going," he said. "I thought she kept them off-balanced. With (pitching coach Britni Sneed Newman's) pitch-calling and her changeup, I thought she did a great job against a great lineup."
James Madison (51-7) kept the hits coming in the third, getting a double off the wall from 9-hole hitter Kierstin Roadcap and then a two-run shot by Morgan Tolle that gave the Dukes a 2-1 lead.
While Baylor was struggling to get anything going against Good, Selman was able to keep JMU's hitters down the rest of the day. She retired 13 in a row and 14 of the last 15 after Tolle's homer.
"You can't put a value on it, because the team sees that kind of a performance and they feed off of it," Moore said. "We're not a team that puts eight, 10 runs against people. We're going to hold them down and beat them by a run or two. And we don't have many like that, but for this one Shelby came through for us."
Madyson Moran, who hit a game-tying homer in the Dukes' 3-2 win over Oregon State Friday night, ended a string of 13 consecutive batters retired with a sharp single to center with one out in the seventh.
But, centerfielder Jessie Scroggins threw a bullet to Friudenberg to get Moran as she rounded the bag for her seventh outfield assist of the season.
"When you've stayed close for that entire length of time, it takes the wind out of a team to know that they're down two with three outs left," Moore said. "And then when you have a centerfielder that throws somebody out rounding the bag like she's done multiple times this year, that really takes the wind out of them."
Selman finished off the four-hitter and picked up her first postseason win by getting Niki Prince on a grounder to third.
Facing a JMU lineup that was hitting a national-best .357 was tough, Selman said, "but I know how good we are and I know how good our defense is."
"Especially with the offense, I knew they were going to come through at any moment," she said. "Basically, I was just trying to make quality pitches and go right at them and trust Coach Newman and the defense."
Baylor is 2-0 in a regional for the sixth time, advancing to the Super Regional in four of the five previous times. The lone exception was 2004, when the Lady Bears finished third in a six-team regional they hosted.
"We talked about it all week, you've got to be 2-0," Moore said. "I don't feel real good at all about us coming back, having to win later on. I wouldn't tell you that in a press conference, but I don't feel really good about our chances there. We'll be more rested (now). Someone's got to beat us twice now, and that's hard to do. It could be done, but we're not going to take it for granted. We'll be ready to play."
Baylor will face James Madison in Sunday's region final. JMU defeated Kent State, 4-0, in an elimination game Saturday night after Kent State eliminated Oregon State earlier in the day. First pitch between the Lady Bears and the Dukes is set for 1 p.m. Sunday. If the Lady Bears lose the first game, the if-necessary game is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.
THE RUNDOWN WACO, Texas -- No. 15-seeded Baylor softball (45-12) punched its ticket into the NCAA Waco Regional final, knocking off the 12th-ranked James Madison Dukes (51-7) on Saturday afternoon at Getterman Stadium.
Kelsee Selman (23-8) worked the full 7.0 frames, allowing just two runs on four hits, striking out eight JMU batters.
Lindsey Cargill had a record-breaking start to the contest, leading off the bottom of the first with a single up the middle to snap the Baylor career hits record. Cargill slashed her 248th career hit, passing Naomi Fitzgerald for the program's new high water mark (247, 1998-2001).
Cargill advanced on a groundout and sac bunt, coming around to score from third on a wild pitch.
The Dukes attacked back in the top of the third, cutting in front with a two-run home run to take the 2-1 lead.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Lady Bears were retired on two quick outs, down to the team's final four chances to find an equalizer.
Kyla Walker dropped a bunt single in, kicking off the two-out rally bid.
Ari Hawkins laced a single up the middle, moving Walker to second and bringing up Shelby Friudenberg.
The junior slugger took the first pitch she saw and launched it up and over the fence, bouncing off the camera well beyond the wall in left-center for a three-run shot, her 10th home run of the season.
The three-run bomb gave the Lady Bears the 4-2 lead, with Selman back in the top of the seventh to close out the contest.
Selman picked up a swinging strikeout for the first out, with the Dukes lacing a single into centerfield.
Jessie Scroggins, charging up to field the ball in shallow right-center, came up firing to first after the JMU runner took a big turn, with Friudenberg throwing the tag down to erase the hit for the second out.
Selman forced JMU to groundout to pick up the third out, advancing the Lady Bears into the Regional final on Sunday.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Kyla Walker bumped her season hit total to 80, one hit away from tying Harmony Schwethelm (2005) and Ashley Monceaux (2007) for the program's single-season hits record.
- Shelby Friudenberg launched her 10th home run of the season, giving the Lady Bears two 10+ home run hitters for the second-consecutive season.
- Friudenberg became the third Lady Bear in program history to hit 10+ home runs in three seasons, joining Brette Reagan as the only two to hit 10 or more in the first three seasons of their respective careers.
- Baylor advanced to the Regional final for the fifth-consecutive season.
- BU has advanced to the Super Regional round five out of the six times when they've started out 2-0 in a Regional (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014), going 3-0 four times. In 2014, the Lady Bears dropped a 1-0, 11-inning contest with Tulsa before bouncing back to win the second game, 3-1. The lone time the team missed out on advancing was in 2004, the program's first-ever NCAA berth.
TOP QUOTES
"I really just trusted in Coach [Britni] Newman, she is such a good pitch caller and I communicated with her immediately after that and we changed up what I was doing and what pitches I was throwing. Really, it all came down to trusting in Coach Newman and the defense that was behind me. They made great plays through the whole entire game. It makes it easy to pitch when you have that kind of defense and that kind of pitch calling." -- Baylor pitcher Kelsee Selman
"We were sharing a lot of information in the dugout. As we passed the information on, everyone was getting an idea of what she, was going to do. Screwball, riseball -- we were able to learn the routine she was doing and we caught a hold of it." -- Baylor infielder Shelby Friudenberg
"You really can't put a value on it, because a team sees that kind of performance and they feed off of it. We're not a team who puts up eight to ten runs against people. We're going to hold them down and beat them by a run or two, and we don't have many like that. Shelby really came through for us, and you can look back even before that and Kyla Walker was just phenomenal, and an unbelievable athlete and hitter. She started the rally with two outs and then Ari gets on and passes the bat to Friudenberg and then she hits the long ball." -- Baylor head coach Glenn Moore
STAT OF THE GAME
13 -- the consecutive number of JMU batters retired by Selman after giving up the two-run HR, including 14 of the final 15 Duke batters. The lone single allowed by Selman over that stretch was erased by Scroggins on the assist from centerfield in to first base.
WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor awaits the winner of Game 5 of the Waco Regional, which will feature James Madison and the winner of Oregon State-Kent State. The Lady Bears will face the team that comes out of Saturday evening game in the regional final, set for Sunday, May 21 at 1 p.m. at Getterman Stadium. BU will have two chances to advance, entering the finals atop the region standings at 2-0.
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