Rowan upsets No. 1 Virginia Wesleyan in opening round of Division III softball championship
The eighth-seeded Profs handed the Marlins their first loss of the season on Thursday behind Emily McCutcheon's stellar pitching. Rowan moves on to the second round on Friday.
Undefeated no more.
On Thursday, No. 8 Rowan defeated No. 1 Virginia Wesleyan, 3-2, in the first round of the Division III softball championship. The Marlins entered the matchup with a 50-0 record, while batting a combined .410 as a team and having scored an average of 9.6 runs in their previous five postseason outings.
However, they had not faced Profs (43-9) senior pitcher Emily McCutcheon before.
McCutcheon, who was named to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association all-region IV first team, pitched a complete game, with 71 of 107 pitches going for strikes, and allowed four hits.
Still, the Marlins had a chance late.
Virginia Wesleyan notched one hit prior to the seventh and final inning. Then, the Marlins’ bats got hot, quickly garnering two runs with two outs remaining. With a three-run cushion erased to one, the Profs’ defense stepped up to close out the game. Rowan sophomore Ava Fisher made a sprinting catch to get the Marlins’ Emma Adams out. On the team’s final at-bat, the Marlins’ Riley Curtice hit a pop-up to the infield, which was promptly caught to finish the game.
Rowan will move on to face the winner of Linfield University (Oregon) and University of Redlands (California) in the second round on Friday (NCAA, 11 a.m.). The road has not endedfor Virginia Wesleyan, though. The Marlins will face the loser of Linfield-Redlands in the double-elimination series.
On Thursday, Rowan got on the scoreboard first.
» READ MORE: Pitcher Emily McCutcheon anchors Rowan softball’s Division III championship chase
In the first inning, senior catcher Kate Evick hit a single to left field to bring in freshman Zoey Rogers from second base. Rowan, which has struggled to score through the team’s NCAA Tournament run, was unable to keep its foot on the gas. Through the first four innings following Rogers’ score, the Profs left six runners in scoring position.
Luckily for the Profs, McCutcheon showed up early. After striking out her first batter to notch her 100th strikeout of the year, the Profs’ ace allowed just one Marlin to reach base — via a walk — through the first four innings.
In the top of the fifth inning, Evick bunted to get Rogers into scoring position. On the next at-bat, Profs senior Abigail Pawlowski singled up the middle to bring in Rogers for her second run. On Rowan’s penultimate at-bat of the inning, freshman Emma Dobkin’s hit dropped along the left field line to bring in fellow freshman Lauren Foltz to take a 3-0 lead.