A pair of comebacks resulted in one thrilling victory and one near upset yesterday for the Central College softball team on day one of the NFCA Division III Leadoff Classic in Columbus, Georgia. The 17th-ranked Dutch beat Piedmont of Georgia 7-4 in nine innings in game one before succumbing to number-six Texas Lutheran 5-3 in the second game. Central fell behind Piedmont 4-0 after three innings, but scored three times in the fourth, including a two-run double by Tabitha Taylor, and one more in the sixth to tie the game. The Lions loaded the bases in both the seventh and eighth innings, but couldn’t push across the winning run, and the Dutch eventually broke through with three runs in the ninth to win. Coach George Wares says that it was nice to see his team battle from behind to get the “W”.

“The play (Abby) Voas made, that’s a huge play to get out of that. I’m not sure which inning that was, but we got out of that. And then you think about (the 8th inning) when they loaded ‘em up. There’s nobody out, then there’s two outs and a 3-0 count, and boom, we get out of it. That’s pretty remarkable, no matter who you’re playing. And so, that’s a good one to win. There’s a lot of things that we can put in our memory banks that we did well, and two or three things (we didn’t do well). If I had to gauge it, I’d say 70% good and 30% not so good.”

In game two against TLU, the Dutch committed three second inning errors and fell behind 3-0, but rallied once more, scoring one in the second and twice more in the fifth to pull even. But the Bulldogs drew a pair of two-out walks in the seventh inning and Jennifer Gallagher ripped a two-run double to provide the winning runs. Central is now 10-4 on the season, and resumes action in Columbus this morning at 9:00 Iowa time. They’ll play Western Connecticut State, the alma-matter of Dutch Associate Head Coach Alicia O’Brien. Depending on the result of that game, and other games taking place in the tournament, Central will be placed in either the gold, silver or bronze tournament for bracket play. They’ll play a second game this afternoon or this evening at a time to be determined. All Central action this weekend can be heard live on www.kniakrls.com on our KNIA2 stream, with Trevor Castle on the call.