March 20, 2010

Utah Valley Box Score
North Dakota Box Score

LOS ANGELES - Outstanding pitching performances from senior Melissa Dykema and freshman Molly Medeiros paced LMU to two more wins Saturday and a perfect 6-0 record at the Crowne Plaza LAX Showcase. Dykema pitched the Lions to a 4-2 win over Utah Valley in the morning before Medeiros produced a gutty performance to beat North Dakota 3-2 and run LMU's winning streak to eight games, its longest in two years.

LMU (11-11), who had relied on its offense to outscore opponents 36-7 over the tournament's first four games, turned to its hurlers on Saturday to close out a tiring week. Dykema (7-6) tossed a six-hitter with six strikeouts against Utah Valley for her fifth consecutive victory and Medeiros (3-4) won her third straight start with a career-high six strikeouts, including one to end the game with the winning run on second.

LMU had defeated Utah Valley 7-0 on Friday but it would not be as easy this time around as the Lions got all four runs early before relying on Dykema to hold off the Wolverines' rally. First inning home runs from sophomore Sam Fischer (a two-run shot) and senior Darcy Pargnini, both their team-leading fifth of the year, staked the Lions to a 3-0 lead. Junior Priscilla Satete tacked on a run in the fourth with an RBI single but Mandy Tapia (0-7) held LMU to just three hits over the last four innings to give her team a chance.

After LMU took a 3-0 lead, Dykema worked her way out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the first before running into trouble in the fifth. A double, a groundout, and a walk put runners on first and third and the Wolverines pulled off a double steal to gain their first run before pulling bcack to 4-2 on a single.

With the Lion offense sputtering, a seventh-inning two-out single gave UVU (5-14) some light and brought up clean-up hitter Amber Sackett representing the tying run. Dykema would have none of it, however, inducing a grounder to short to end the game. Pagnini finished 2-for-3 with a pair of runs scored while Satete also had two hits.

Things would get even more dramatic in the rematch with North Dakota, against whom the Lions had rallied from a 4-1 deficit for a 5-4 win in eight innings on Friday. This time, LMU again jumped out to an early lead, pushing across two runs in the first. Whereas the runs against Utah Valley had come on home runs, the Lions used small ball against the Fighting Sioux. Freshman Danielle Smith led off with an infield single, then stole second and moved to third on Fischer's single to right. Sophomore Kelly Sarginson followed with a grounder to third. Smith broke for home but stopped and got caught in a pickle, but the catcher threw the ball away, allowing her to scamper home and Sarginson and Fischer to end up on second and third. Two batters later, sophomore Brittany Pereda delivered a single up the middle to bring home Fischer.

North Dakota (5-21) cut the lead in half in the third on Casie Hanson's lead-off home run but the Lions tacked on a crucial insurance run in the seventh. Fischer's double off the fence in right put runners on second and third with one out but Sarginson popped up for the second out. Pagnini came through with a single through the left side, scoring LMU's third run, but Fischer was gunned down at the plate to keep the score at 3-1.

That would prove to be a crucial insurance run as Amber Roth made it 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh with a one-out solo homer. Medeiros pitched around Hanson to put the tying run on and then gave up a single to left before bearing down. A grounder to short gave LMU its second out but moved the runners up to second and third, leaving the tying and winning runs in scoring position with clean-up hitter Kristi Alcorn coming up. But Medeiros cemented the win, striking out Alcorn on three pitches.

Fischer and Pagnini each had two hits for the Lions, who have now tied for the seventh-longest winning streak in school history at eight games. It is the program's longest since winning 13 in a row in 2007.

After playing 12 games in the last eight games, LMU takes a well-deserved break. The Lions return to action next Friday when they welcome UNLV to Smith Field for a single game at 2 p.m. The 10-game home stand concludes on Sunday, March 28 with a noon doubleheader against UCLA in the teams' first meeting since LMU knocked the Bruins out of the 2007 NCAA Tournament.