Alabama
Tennessee
Late Inning Heroics Sends Softball to Finals
5/14/2010 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 14, 2010
Box Score | ESPNU Game Highlights
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Alabama junior Whitney Larsen belted a seventh inning line drive walk-off homer to send the Crimson Tide to the Southeastern Conference tournament championship game. The home run handed Alabama a 4-3 victory and its 23rd in a row. After the day the Tide improves to 47-9 on the season while the Lady Vols drop to 42-13 on the year.
The walk-off home run is her second in as many days as she sent Arkansas packing with a grand slam in the fifth inning. This is the second straight season Larsen has hit a walk-off homer in the SEC tournament semifinal to advance Alabama to the championship game.
After Tennessee opened the scoring in the top of the second on a RBI double down the left field line off the bat of Lauren Gibson, Alabama quickly responded in the bottom half.
Back-to-back doubles evened the score for the Tide. Sophomore Kendall Dawson lined a double off the wall in right-center and then fellow sophomore Jennifer Fenton followed suit with a double of her own in the left-center gap to plate her backstop Dawson.
Alabama added another an inning later when sophomore Amanda Locke singled to left-center to bring home junior Whitney Larsen, who started the rally with a double to the gap in left-center.
The Tide continued to chip away by plating a run in its third consecutive inning. Senior Charlotte Morgan ripped it off the glove of the shortstop in the hole to enable Fenton to score from second and extend the Alabama lead to 3-1.
The Lady Vols were able to even the score at three in the top of the fifth when a two out grounder was thrown wide of the bag by freshman Kayla Braud to allow Nicole Kajitani and Whitney Hammond cross the plate.
Cat Hosfield was tagged with the loss (15-8) after allowing two runs on four hits in four innings of relief.
Kelsi Dunne earned the win for Alabama, only allowing one earned run while striking out 13. Dunne is now 26-4 on the season and has now earned the win in 13 straight starts.
With the victory today the Tide will now face the LSU Tigers in the tournament championship game on Saturday, May 15. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CDT and will be aired in ESPN and simulcast on ESPN3.com with Beth Mowins and Jessica Mendoza calling the action.
