For the first time in the tenure of coach Craig Nicholson, the Ball State University softball team finished a weekend with a winning record.
The Cardinals (5-5) went 4-1 at the Panera Bread Tournament at Chattanooga, Tenn. to improve to .500 on the season, another feat the Cardinals had not accomplished before in the tenure of the second-year coach.
The Cardinals' four wins included a comeback from a 5-1 deficit in the bottom of the seventh inning with two outs against East Tennessee State University Saturday.
"It was real exciting it was obviously a big win for us coming back," Nicholson said. "It was a huge win for us confidence-wise."
With two outs in the final inning, Ball State had Lisa Rozanski on second and Natalie Bejarano on third as Abby Gross walked to load the bases.
Elizabeth Milian doubled in all three runners and advanced to third on an error, the second error of the inning for East Tennessee State. Amanda Pick, who homered in the sixth inning, then reached on an throwing error and Milian scored the fourth run of the inning to tie the game. Alyssa Collins then reached second on another throwing error and Pick advanced to third. Kamilah Holle then singled in Pick for the win.
All five of the runs in the inning were unearned on Eastern Tennessee State's four errors.
Nicholson said Eastern Tennessee State's errors do not take away from the victory because they are part of the game.
"They made some mistakes to help us along but I felt like we finally got some pressure on them and forced some of those mistakes," Nicholson said.
The Cardinals had the right part of the lineup and made a couple big hits to make something happen in the inning, Nicholson said.
Gross said it is nice to know that luck was finally on Ball State's side.
"It was really exciting," Gross said. "It was probably one of the best team efforts we had since I've been at Ball State."
The Cardinals also capitalized on unearned runs against Lipscomb University Friday. They scored two unearned runs in the fourth inning off three Lipscomb errors.
Also in the game, Ball State stole home twice on double steals, once by Gross in the third and once by Jen Moore in the fourth.
Nicholson said manufacturing runs is a big part of the Ball State offense.
"If we execute it right, we have a lot of people who can steal runs," he said.
The Cardinals also beat Lipscomb Sunday 5-3. Their other win was a 2-1 victory against St. Francis University Sunday and their loss was a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Eastern Kentucky University Saturday.
Nicholson and Gross said the 4-1 weekend was really big for the Cardinals.
"It felt really good to know that we can do that," Gross said.
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