The N.C. State softball team ended its season in the finals of the NCAA Regional Championship with a loss to No. 4 Georgia on Sunday in Athens, Ga.
After defeating UAB by a score of 4-0, the Wolfpack edged the Bull dogs, 5-4, on Saturday. In Sunday’s rematch, Georgia forced a third game with a 9-1 victory over State, and then proceeded to shut out the Pack, 8-0, in the final.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Wolfpack head coach Shawn Rych cik said. “We ran into a really good team, the No. 4 seed in the country. We happened to get by them once, but they made a bunch of adjust ments and woke up. I think they might have taken us for granted in the first game but played us a lot harder in the second two games.”
The four-team regional tourna ment featured UAB, Chattanooga and Georgia, along with N.C. State, which opened play against the Blazers.
Against UAB, State scored three runs through freshman pinch run ner Nadia Kemp and seniors first baseman Leah Jones and outfielder Scout Albertson in the bottom of the third to take an early 3-0 lead. Junior shortstop Renada Davis notched her 49th career homerun with a solo shot in the bottom of the sixth to give the Wolfpack the eventual win at 4-0.
The following day, the Wolfpack made history by becoming the first softball team in school history to win the first two games of Regionals with a 5-4 win over Georgia.
Solo homeruns from fresh man outfielder Molly Hutchi son and sophomore third baseman Lana Van Dyken gave State the lead, and af ter senior Leah Jones drew a walk with the bases loaded, the Wolfpack went up 3-2. A two-RBI double from Van Dyken in the seventh gave State insurance, and although the Bulldogs fought back, ju nior pitcher Emily Weiman secured the win.
“I thought we had really good performances all the way around,” Rychcik said. “I thought Lana van Dyken and Renada Davis had really nice weekends and Emily competed like crazy on the mound. She had a really good game against UAB and then beat Georgia the next day. I thought she did a really good job competing for us.”
After a weather delay on Sunday, the Wolfpack again faced Georgia, but despite junior Renada Davis setting a school record with her 50th career homerun, State fell 9-1 to the Bulldogs.
In the second game on the same day for the two sides, Georgia’s dominance came through, and the host school ended the Wolfpack’s season with a mercy-rule victory, 8-0.
For Rychcik, the loss was disappointing, but the sec ond-year head coach had nothing but respect for the tough Georgia team which eventually outmatched his vastly improved Wolfpack group.
“Georgia is one of the bet ter teams in the country,” Ry chcik said. “Their intensity, how tightly-knit a group of girls they are and their con trol of the strike zone are all impressive. They really made it hard on our hitting staff to only swing at strikes. They’re really a complete team and it seems they’re on a mission to get to the World Series right now.”
Looking ahead to next sea son, Rychcik said he values the experience gained from playing such a high-quality opponent, and said he learned quite a bit about where his team must improve.
“I think we’re going to try to become a better hitting team even though we hit 67 homeruns this year and 88 last year,” Rychcik said. “But the pressure Georgia put on us at the plate by controlling the strike zone, the way their lineup stacked together, and how they worked as a unit was something to learn from. It would be nice to see our team do the same thing.
The second-year head coach said he was optimistic about the team’s future.
“We’ve got to get better and get a bit more depth in our lineup, but I’m really happy with who we are and how we’ve developed,” Rychcik said. “We’ll work hard in the offseason and we’ll try to get where Georgia was this sea son so we can get ourselves out of our regional tourna ment.”
