{"id":7695,"date":"2018-05-04T15:23:35","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T23:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=7695"},"modified":"2018-05-03T15:25:17","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T23:25:17","slug":"two-finishing-runs-puts-the-wolves-in-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/two-finishing-runs-puts-the-wolves-in-playoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Two finishing runs puts the Wolves in playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernjournal\/files\/2018\/05\/SOFTBALL-1024x571.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"571\" class=\"size-large wp-image-7667 aligncenter\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2018\/05\/SOFTBALL-1024x571.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2018\/05\/SOFTBALL-300x167.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2018\/05\/SOFTBALL-768x428.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2018\/05\/SOFTBALL-174x98.jpeg 174w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2018\/05\/SOFTBALL.jpeg 1040w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Simson Garcia | Sports Editor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tied with Montana State and Simon Fraser at 13-13 in conference record, Wolves softball clinched the fourth and final playoff spot on senior day, April 29, beating out Montana. After shutting out Simon Fraser 8-0, the opposing team reversed the doubleheader, shutting the Wolves out 4-0 on April 28. A second opponent, the Western Washington Vikings, entered Western\u2019s home field on April 29. Their doubleheader matchup started after a rain delay, but the Wolves eventually concluded their home stand with two game playoff clinching runs: 11-10, and 11-2. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Wolves celebrated two seniors, pitcher Lizzet Dominguez and outfielder Zoe Clark, in their final career home games. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI&#8217;m just so proud of everyone. I think this is a perfect time for everyone to gel as we go into playoffs,\u201d Dominguez commented. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only one hit traveled past Western\u2019s defense as pitcher Haley Fabian, junior, almost added a complete no hitter in the shutout. The visiting team swung hard and got their lone hit in the fifth inning, but most contact was limited to fly outs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Western&#8217;s offense went to work in every inning earning one hit in each and 12 overall on the game. The Wolves quickly got to the bag early with junior infielder Ryanne Huffman. She stole both second and third bases in aims for home base and the games first score. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Three home run shots were also delivered by the Wolves in the takedown of their opponents. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While hitting came in bunches in game one, Wolf bats only found two while runners on base couldn&#8217;t reach home in the immediate rematch. Simon Fraser\u2019s Alia Stachoski, second in GNAC pitching in strikeouts, got the Wolves looking and missing, fanning six in her complete game. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With two final home games to go, the Vikings were all that were left for the Wolves. The game provided the most action throughout the four-game span, as both teams batted a combined 30 total hits. The Wolves got out quickly with five runs in the first inning but it was the Vikings\u2019s turn in the fifth. Washington filled the bases and a three-run double to left field got them back in it to tie, 5-5. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both teams battled all the way up until an extra inning with the game, at 10 runs apiece. With two outs and two on, Western\u2019s left fielder Ayanna Arceneaux, sophomore, singled to the right side for the walk-off game winner. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The walk-off and momentum flowed into the final matchup beginning where they left off with Arceneaux batting in two. Clark delivered, however, in her final home performance. Her first homer help put the Wolves up by several notches at 6-0. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clark\u2019s second home run to center field delivered the final play of the game. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI think it&#8217;s great going into this weekend into the GNAC tournament with everybody being zero-zero. We\u2019ll just go in with all the fight that we have and leave it all out on the field,\u201d said Clark. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before the GNAC tournament officially starts, one more away game is to be played with Western traveling to Portland for a matchup with Northwest Nazarene on May 3 at 7 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Photo by: wouwolves.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Simson Garcia | Sports Editor Tied with Montana State and Simon Fraser at 13-13 in conference record, Wolves softball clinched the fourth and final playoff spot on senior day, April 29, beating out Montana. After shutting out Simon Fraser 8-0, the opposing team reversed the doubleheader, shutting the Wolves out 4-0 on April 28. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":7667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}