Alex Hill delivered a 3-run home run and threw a complete game 3-hitter as Montclair State clipped Central College 4-1 in the opening round of the NCAA Division III Softball Championships last night. Hill’s blow was just her second home run of the year, and it came with two outs in the bottom of the third inning, and gave her more than enough cushion. Dutch Coach George Wares was quick to credit the Red Hawks in his postgame press conference.
“I think the other side of that is, we probably didn’t play our best game. I’ll let Mallory (Schulenberg) answer for herself, but I didn’t think our pitchers were exceptionally sharp. Actually, I thought she made a good pitch, an off-speed pitch, on the pitch that Hill hit out. We would do that again, (an intentional) walk to get to her, but she did a good job and gave them a three run lead. I was happy with the way our team came back the next inning, and had a shot to do more but couldn’t get a key base hit.”
Central’s lone tally came in the top of the 4th inning, when Abbey Strajack scored on a Red Hawk fielding error. The Dutch then had second and third with one out, but couldn’t muster anything further. Schulenberg suffered the loss, as Central falls to 32-9 on the season. They’ll have a quick turnaround, having to play an elimination game against the University of Texas-Tyler at 1:30 this afternoon. We’ll hit the air with our Pella Motors.com pregame show at 1:15 on 92.1 KRLS and www.kniakrls.com.