No. 21 Ohio State Advances to Regional Title Game with 2-1 Win over No. 13 Virginia Tech – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/19/2007 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 19, 2007
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COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Buckeyes took an early 2-0 lead and pitchers Kim Reeder and Jamee Juarez combined to make it stand as Ohio State topped the regional’s No. 1 seed and 13th-ranked Virginia Tech, 2-1, Saturday at Buckeye Field in the Columbus regional of the 2007 NCAA Softball Championship. The Buckeyes are now 21-0 at home this season and 40-16 overall and advance to a 1 p.m. game Sunday with a 2-0 record in the regional.
Virginia Tech (49-15) is now 1-1 in the regional and will play again at 6 p.m. Saturday against Cal State Fullerton. The winner of that 6 p.m. game will meet Ohio State Sunday, needing to beat the Buckeyes twice to win the regional. Otherwise, with one win Ohio State will advance to its first NCAA Super Regional in program history and face the winner of the Arizona regional.
Reeder (soph., Salinas, Calif./Notre Dame H.S.) earned the win with 5.1 innings of three-hit, one-run work in the circle to improve to 17-7 this season, while Juarez (sr., La Puente, Calif./Wilson) got her fifth save of the season with 1.2 innings of one hit relief.
Virginia Tech All-American pitcher Angela Tincher, who is the Atlantic Coast Conference’s all-time strikeout leader, notched her 600th strikeout of the season in the game and fanned nine, but the Buckeyes improved to 2-1 against her this season and collected five hits.
The last time Ohio State faced Tincher March 11 in Clearwater, Fla., the junior Hokie no-hit the Buckeyes, but this day would belong to Ohio State, which has now scored at least one run in a school-record 34-consecutive games since being no-hit by Tincher.
OSU senior Nycole Koyano (Walnut, Calif./Walnut) scored both Buckeye runs. She led off the first inning with a double to the right-centerfield gap and Tincher proceeded to walk the next two batters. With the bases loaded, senior Megan Schwab (Glendale, Ariz./Sunrise Mountain) lifted a sacrifice fly to center to score Koyano and give the Buckeyes a 1-0 lead.
With two outs in the second inning, Koyano walked, went to second on a Tech fielding error and scored on an RBI single down the left field line by freshman Sam Marder (Calabasas, Calif./Calabasas).
Juarez and senior Lauren Daykin (Melbourne, Australia/Manatee C.C., Fla.) also singled off Tincher.
### Go Bucks! ###
