Written By: Durango Herald Sports Staff, Dale Strode
March 21, 2010. Durango, CO. - Finally, a home doubleheader.
Finally, a sweep.
The Fort Lewis College softball team, playing at home in Durango for the first time all season, defeated Regis University twice on a sunny but chilly Saturday afternoon at Aspen Field.
The Skyhawks, with timely hitting and shut-down pitching, beat the travel-weary Rangers 5-1 and 3-2 to end their seemingly endless streak of recent Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference twin-bill splits.
Fort Lewis pitchers Stephanie Janes and Kassie Haubert shut down the Rangers, who spent Friday night crammed into a spring break motel in South Fork after their snowy trip from Denver was delayed on the east side of Wolf Creek Pass.
Regis finally arrived in Durango - a little late Saturday.
The Skyhawks, however, started early with two quick runs in the bottom of the first inning on a sharp single to right field by Jordan Willis, a line-drive double to left by Ashley Hibbs and a line-drive single to center by Haubert.
Haubert extended the first-game lead to 3-0 in the third with a towering one-run snowball to deep left field - a solo home run into the snowbank beyond the left-field fence.
Amanda Willmon doubled to center to lead off the bottom of the fourth for FLC. She scored on an RBI single by Chelena Coulston, giving the Skyhawks a 4-0 lead.
Willmon scored again in the sixth after she singled. She came home on Coulston's groundout to short.
Janes, meanwhile, limited Regis to only three hits and one run through six-plus innings. Two of the hits were infield singles, and the third was a suicide squeeze bunt that scored Regis' only run of the first game in the fifth inning.
The Skyhawks avoided further damage when catcher Kayla Bruner blocked the plate to prevent Alisha Heronema from scoring on an attempted double steal.
Haubert came in to relieve Janes with two runners on and one out in the top of the seventh. She coaxed a lazy fly ball to the right field line that was chased down by Jayme Fuller, who threw home to Bruner.
Bruner again tagged out Heronema, who was attempting to score.
The game-ending double play set the tone for a second-game thriller, with Haubert pitching a complete-game victory for the Skyhawks.
She allowed only six hits and two runs (both in the top of the fourth) while striking out four in a duel against Regis' Bianca Holley, one of the top pitchers in the RMAC.
“Early on, I didn't use the changeup because it was too low, and he (umpire) wasn't calling it," Haubert said.
“But in the later innings, I knew I had to change speeds more … so I went back to the change," said Haubert, a redshirt freshman from Berthoud who also was effective with her fastball and rise ball.
“Kass (Haubert) pitched a great game," Fort Lewis head coach Pam Adams said after Saturday's sweep. “And we finally got a one-run game.
“Overall, our pitchers came back when they were in trouble (Saturday)," Adams said. “They did a good job. We walked a few too many in the first game, but we battled."
The Skyhawks fell behind 2-0 in the second game when Regis took advantage of two FLC errors and a double to right by Holley.
But the Skyhawks, who had been held hitless through three innings by Holley, answered immediately.
Willis, leading off the inning, crushed a line drive home run down the left-field line, over the fence and into the snowbank.
“She missed. It was a mistake," the smiling Willis said of the pitch she drilled for FLC's first run in the second game. “It was 0-2 (the count). It (the pitch) shouldn't have been anywhere close."
Fort Lewis added two more runs in the fourth on RBI singles by Bruner and Natalie Janes, sister of Stephanie Janes.
Haubert made the lead hold up by retiring the last six consecutive Regis hitters.
Holley allowed only five hits in the loss, and she struck out seven, including four of the first six hitters she faced.
Catcher Denae Benally blocked the plate yet again for Fort Lewis, preventing a potential Regis run from scoring in the top of the fifth.
For the third time in two games, the Skyhawks tagged out Heronema in a play at home.
“That's a big play," Willis said. “That's a run."
Haubert agreed.
“It fires us up," Haubert said of the bone-jarring home-plate collisions that helped the Skyhawks improve to 7-5 in the RMAC, 8-10 overall.
Regis is 4-16 and 1-13.
The two teams play another doubleheader at 11 a.m. today at Aspen Field
dstrode@durangoherald.com
