The Southwest Mississippi Community College softball team closed out the regular season, their most successful ever, Tuesday afternoon with 5-2 and 11-8 losses to the visiting East Central Lady Warriors.
East Central entered the game ranked No. 5 in the NJCAA.
Despite the setbacks, the Lady Bears (23-19, 16-12) will still advance to their first-ever playoff appearance Friday and Saturday at Itawamba Community College, ranked 12th in the current NJCAA rankings. The Lady Bears enter the post-season as the 6th seeded team while Itawamba is third.
The Lady Bears trailed 5-0 in the opener before getting on the board in the bottom of the fifth on Kelcey Bremenkamp’s two-out homer over the right field fence.
McKenzie Brock reached on an error to lead off the Lady Bears’ sixth inning and later scored on a Jenna Duff base hit, reaching the final score.
Macy Fulton took the loss in the circle, allowing all five runs — two earned — on seven hits and three walks. She struck out one batter. Jessie Penton had a single in the game.
The Lady Warriors (40-7, 22-6) held a 2-0 lead in the finale before the Lady Bears scored in the bottom of the first. Brock reached on an error to start the inning and later scored on a double from Penton. Pruitt’s ground out later in the inning allowed Penton to score and tie the game at 2-2.
Bremenkamp’s second solo homer of the day over the right field fence, and second hit of the game, put the Lady Bears on top 3-2 after two innings.
The Lady Warriors then scored three runs in their half of the fourth and another in the fifth to move out to a 6-3 advantage.
Penton’s base hit in the bottom of the fifth scored Gianca Holmes. Holmes was on base for Jordan Fitzgerald, who doubled. Penton then scored on an error to bring the Lady Bears to within a run, 6-5.
A homer, two singles and three errors then allowed the Lady Warriors to score five runs in the top of the sixth to increase their lead to 11-5.
The Lady Bears made a comeback attempt in the bottom of the seventh. Brock led off the frame with a single and later scored on Duff’s base hit. Penton reached on an error and later scored on a sacrifice fly from Emily Tuminello. Duff then scored on a wild pitch to bring the Lady Bears to within three runs, but that would be as close as they could get as the Lady Warriors held on for the win.
Rebecca Davis took the loss in the circle, giving up 11 runs -— two earned — on 11 hits and three walks. She struck out one batter.
Kayla Sanchez had a double for the Lady Bears while Pruitt had a single.
Despite the losses, Lady Bears’ head coach Shea Johnson said would said he thought his team did well.
“You can’t give great teams like that, a team ranked as high as they are in the nation, extra outs,” he said. “That’s the main thing we’ve got to cut down on. We’ve got to play defense behind our pitchers.
“I thought out pitchers did a pretty good job. We didn’t keep it down in the zone as much as I would like in the second game. But, it’s been a great season. We’re not complaining about where we’re at; we’re looking at moving on.”
“We started to get some hits” late in game two, Johnson said. “I think you build on that and go into the playoffs knowing that we played well against Itawamba. You go up there and try to get one win first and then you go from there.”
The teams split their regular-season meeting in Summit.
The Lady Bears open up the best-of-three opening round of the post-season against the Lady Indians in Fulton Friday at 4 p.m. Game 2 of the series is set for 1 p.m. Saturday with Game 3, if necessary, to follow at around 3 p.m.
