By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
 
HATTIESBURG – William Carey got part of the job done, but couldn't finish Thursday afternoon in the championship round of the NAIA Softball Opening Round.
 
The Crusaders held on for a gritty 3-2 triumph over Jessup (Cal.) to force a deciding championship game, and it was the Warriors who prevailed 4-3 in an equally hard-nosed contest at Joseph and Nancy Fail Field.
 
Jessup (39-10), ranked seventh in the final NAIA regular-season poll and the tournament's top seed, advanced to the NAIA World Series at Columbus, Ga., with the victory. Fourteenth-ranked Carey (41-14), the 2-seed, again came up short in the deciding game of the opening round.
 
"Great day," said Carey head coach Craig Fletcher. "Incredible job by our kids, winning the first game by one run, then getting beat by one run after we were down 4-1. We hung in there and battled back; we just missed some opportunities."
 
Indeed, Fletcher and the Crusaders lamented a ton of missed opportunities in both games, leaving 11 runners on base in each of the two games, and they left runners stranded at third base in five other innings.
 
"We had opportunities, and – I don't know – maybe we got a little tight in those situations, or maybe their pitchers were just that good," said Fletcher. "But we didn't come through with the big hit when we needed it.
 
"We talked during the first game about it and during the game earlier in the week against them when we had opportunities. This time of year, you can't leave opportunities sitting on the bases; you've got to get them in."
 
Even with the missed scoring chances, Carey had a chance to win both games thanks to a prodigious effort in the pitching circle by sophomore right-hander Ryanne Hornsby.
 
The former Oak Grove High standout pitched all 14 innings, and gave the Crusaders everything she had.
 
"First game was good, and the second game I wasn't bad either," said Hornsby. "They just had a couple of little bloop hits, and that's going to happen. But me going 14 innings was for the seniors, to try to keep their careers alive."
 
Playing as the visitor in Thursday's first game, WCU got the games started the right way with a run in the top of the first inning.
 
Senior Brooke Tanner drew a leadoff walk off Warrior junior Serena Navarette, stole second and scored on senior Carley Kidder's single up the middle.
 
"I think it set the tone for us, to start off like that," said Kidder. "Even though we ultimately came up short, we got the game going in that first one when we had nothing else going."
 
Carey subsequently got runners to second and third, but Jessup got out of the jam with a groundout.
 
In the bottom of the first, Hornsby pitched around a one-out triple off the bat of Warrior junior Maddy Ybarra, getting a hot shot to third off the bat of junior Sarah Giles for one out and popup to first for the other.
 
The Crusaders padded their lead in the third, with senior Rachel Rodriguez leading off with a single up the middle and she went to second when the ball was bobbled in the outfield.
 
Another error on a ground ball by Kidder got Rodriguez to third, and she alertly dashed home when Kidder beat a throw at second on a ground ball. But a double play helped the Warriors avoid further trouble.
 
The run that proved to be the difference came in the fourth, and again it came after Carey got its leadoff batter on base.
 
Sophomore Albanie Fussell drew a walk and was sacrificed by sophomore Kinley Hogue. Senior Alex Davis followed by driving a 2-2 pitch into the right-centerfield gap and all the way to the wall to drive in the run.
 
Jessup mounted a comeback starting with Giles, the odds-on favorite for NAIA Player of the Year as she leads all NAIA players in batting, home runs and RBIs.
 
Giles ripped the first pitch of the bottom of the sixth way over the fence in leftfield to make it 3-1.
 
Carey got back-to-back singles with one out off senior Terri Goetz, who replaced Navarette (7-2) to start the seventh for the Warriors, but again got nothing out it, leading to a dramatic finish.
 
Junior Aaliyah Pineda took Hornsby's first pitch in the bottom of the seventh up the middle for a single then was retired at second on a groundball to shortstop.
 
A groundout moved the runner to second and she went to third on a single off the bat of junior Madisyn Leffle, at the top of the Warriors' batting order.
 
The run came in on a single up the middle by Ybarra, bringing Giles to the plate with the tying run at second and the winning run on first, a situation made for some Player of the Year heroics.
 
But it was Hornsby who won this showdown, getting two quick strikes then inducing a game-ending lineout to right.
 
"I just had to keep my composure and make big pitches," said Hornsby. "It was just trusting my pitches, trusting my defense behind me, trusting my team."
 
The Crusaders have ridden their ace pitcher all year long, and Fletcher turned to Hornsby again for the climactic final game of the regional.
 
"That was the plan all along," said Fletcher. "Ryanne has done that for us several times, throwing 14 straight (innings). She wants the ball every time out there. She did an incredible job for us today."
 
But after winning such a mentally-draining game as the first game, the Crusaders had a hard time recharging their emotional batteries, and it was the Warriors who took command at the start of the second game.
 
With Carey as the home team, Jessup wasted no time seizing the momentum, scoring two unearned runs in the top of the first with the help of a costly error.
 
Leffle led off by beating out a slow roller to third, then took two bases on a throwing error on a potential double-play ball off the bat of Ybarra.
 
Hornsby got one out on pop foul to first, but junior Kaylee Winn drove in the run with a single up the middle. Another pop up in the infield got Hornsby one out, but the Warriors turned a pickoff into a run.
 
With Ybarra at third after Winn's single, the Crusaders picked off Winn after she stumbled leaving first on a pitch to Pineda. But Winn kept the play alive long enough for Ybarra to come home before the final out of the inning was recorded.
 
"We knew they were going to come back out hotter when we played the second game," said Kidder. "We may have come out for that second game a little too lax.
 
"This has been a really fun year. The seniors have all made it really fun; we've all been really close, we've all had a part on this team, and I think we made the best that we could out of this season."
 
WCU answered right back with a run in the bottom of the inning, and as was the case throughout the game, it came after two were out off Jessup senior Kate Blankenheim.
 
Kidder smacked a double into the gap in left-centerfield and senior Dee Dee West answered with a ball to the same spot, with the same result, a double for a run.
 
But Jessup still had its offensive mojo working in the top of the second, as the bottom of its order came through for two runs.
 
Pineda completed her aborted at-bat from the first inning with a single to right to open the second, she was sacrificed over by sophomore Neva Adams and scored on a double to right-centerfield by junior Olivia Dominguez.
 
Dominguez stole third and scored on a single down the leftfield line by junior Lexi Watson, the Warriors' 9-hole hitter.
 
Hornsby snuffed out the Warriors the rest of the way, but the damage was done, and the Crusaders were unable to get the big hit they needed with runners in scoring position.
 
Still, they got themselves in position for big innings that produced runs in the third and fourth innings, but which could have produced more.
 
Davis led off the third with a triple to the wall in centerfield. She was unable to score on Tanner's infield single down the first-base line, nor on the comebacker from Rodriguez. But Kidder's single into right got her home to make it 4-2.
 
A walk loaded the bases, but Blankenheim got a lineout to third and a groundout to first to limit the damage.
 
Blankenheim got two quick outs in the fourth, but Davis singled to right, stole second and scored on a single by Rodriguez after Tanner drew a walk.
 
That led to a pitching change for Jessup, bringing back Goetz, whose best pitch is a baffling knuckle-curve that seemed at times to float to the plate.
 
Goetz (13-2) got Kidder with two runners on to end the fourth, she got a strikeout to end the fifth when the Crusaders got two singles and a walk to load the bases after two were out, a groundout to end the sixth with two on and retired Carey in order in the seventh.
 
Although she finished as the losing pitcher, Hornsby (27-9) will be back next year, along with a corps of talented underclassmen that includes all four pitchers.
 
"I'm excited about next year," said Hornsby. "We have a lot of new people who didn't play a lot this year ready to step in, a lot of good opportunities for some young players to step forward."
 
But the Crusaders will also have to rebuild without six seniors who started virtually every game this season, and they leave behind a legacy that includes two Southern States Athletic Conference championships and three national tournament trips.
 
"They have accomplished so much," said Fletcher. "Two conference championships, regular-season champs twice, three times playing in this opening round. Just couldn't ask more from them. Awfully proud of them."