Despite a strong effort, the Lady Lions (11-34, 3-15) softball team dropped two games at home against the Stephen F. Austin (16-30, 6-12) Ladyjacks.
The Lady Lions played the weekend series on Friday, April 27 at 6 p.m. and Saturday, April 28 at 12 p.m. at North Oak Park.
On Friday, during the inaugural “Shut Out Cancer” event, the Lady Lions failed to get on the scoreboard until the fourth inning when shortstop sophomore Kayla Elswick scored the team’s first run.
“She hit a couple of balls to the wall,” said head coach Pete Langlois. “Kayla did really well.”
During the bottom of the sixth, the team’s fortunes quickly changed as they were able to put up three runs and bring the game within one run to tie.
“Sometimes it just takes a good kick in the butt from our coach and we’re off to the races. We’re scoring, we’re hitting, we’re doing whatever it takes to win,” said sophomore right fielder Katie Matthews. “Once we realize as a team, when it comes down to the last few innings, something just snaps in our brains and we just kick it on.”
In the very next inning, the Lady Lions were able to tie up the game at 5-5 due to a run by junior center/infielder Katie Doyle. Pitching by senior Vicki Honeycutt kept the Ladyjacks off the board and led the team into extra innings.
Despite a tough fight, the Lady Lions would fall 7-5 in the ninth inning after allowing two runs by the Ladyjacks and failing to score at the bottom of the ninth.
After the game, Langlois reflected on the team’s tough loss.
“We’re so close, but it hurts when you lose it like that,” said Langlois. “We call it fighting the fight, and they fought the fight.”
On Saturday, the Ladyjacks opened the first inning with seven runs against Lady Lion’s pitchers Jessie Browne and Kati Morse. At the top of the third, the Ladyjacks were aided by a Lady Lions throwing error and scored another run bringing the score to 8-0.
Finally, in the fourth inning the Lady Lions got on the board with a hit over the left field fence by junior first baseman Ariell Van Hook.
The Ladyjacks would complete the sweep of the Lady Lions with a 9-1 victory.
After Friday night’s game, Langlois spoke on what this match up meant for the season as a whole.
“We’ve played that exact game at least twenty times this year. It’s been seven innings, tough, hardnosed, we’ve just been short,” said Langlois. “The story line is if you saw this game tonight, then you saw it against Moorehead, Indiana, all those.  The team is fighting hard, playing hard, we’ve just been a little bit short.”
The Lady Lions will play their next three games against non-conference competition where they are 9-19 on the season. On Tuesday, May 1 they will  travel north to Grambling, La. for a doubleheader. The Lady Lions will then travel east to Hattiesburg, Miss. to face the  Southern Mississippi Lady Golden Eagles on Wednesday, May 2. The Lady Lions then return home on Friday, May 4 for their last two games of the season at North Oak Park against University of Texas at Arlington.
The Lady Lions will look to end 2012 on a higher note than last season, when they finished with a three game losing streak to close the year.