This post was written by Hatchet reporter Sean Hurd.
You could feel the momentum slowly start to shift.
In the top of the fifth inning of the Colonials’ matinee versus the Princeton Tigers, on what was a very cold and windy Thursday afternoon, Colonials starting pitcher Meghan Rico took the mound with a comfortable 3-0 cushion.
After a couple of pitches, it was evident that Rico was struggling to find the strike zone against Princeton’s leadoff batter; even after she stifled the Princeton offense early on, only allowing two hits through her first four innings of work.
Rico walked the Princeton leadoff hitter on four pitches to start the inning.
Then, Rico walked the next batter.
And then she walked the next batter.
The bases were now loaded with still no Princeton players retired in the inning. Head coach Stacey Schramm tried to explain Rico’s struggle to throw strikes.
“There was probably a field temperature of 28 degrees,” Schramm said. “It’s difficult to throw strikes in these kinds of elements, but it is what it is. She maybe just lost it, clearly she lost it.”
With the bases loaded and nobody out, Schramm decided to tap the shoulder of her go-to pitcher so far this season, Courtney Martin.
But Martin struggled to get out of the inning. Against the first batter she faced, Martin surrendered an RBI groundout to Princeton shortstop Alyssa Schmidt, narrowing the lead to two runs. Up next for the Tigers was starting pitcher Alex Peyton, who lined a single to right field clearing the bases and tying the score up at three.
After Martin was able to get out of a jam in the fifth, and the Colonials failed to score with the bases loaded in the bottom half of the inning, Princeton was able to score four unearned runs in the top of the sixth with the help of an error by the GW defense to take the lead and eventually win the game 7-3.
The Tigers improved to 11-8 overall while the Colonials fell to 11-13, and have now lost two in a row.
.“I have a short memory with games like these,” Schramm said, adding that her team may have taken its foot off the gas after gaining the lead early on. “I think we tried to hit the cruise control after the first inning going up three nothing. Unfortunately Princeton was able to take advantage of the three walks and the error to really break the game open.”
Martin (5-8) was tagged with the loss, going three innings, and giving up four unearned runs on five hits, while striking out three.
The bright spot from the Colonials’ offense came from sophomore shortstop Victoria Valos who smacked a three-run home run over the right field fence to give the Colonials an early first inning lead.
Valos credited the GW coaching staff for giving her a precise scouting report that had her looking for the Princeton starter’s favorite pitch, the dropball.
“Going into that at bat I was thinking to just keep my hands high, look for something outside, and that’s what I got,” Valos said, who leads the team in home runs with six.
Valos also commented on the mindset of her team, and how they plan to rebound before the start of conference play this Sunday.
“I think we as a team are very confident right now,” Valos said. “We’ve been playing really well these past few games. This game was just one bump in the road that makes us that much stronger. We’ll learn from our mistakes and come back ready to play.”
The Colonials begin conference play this Sunday when they play a double-header against the Charlotte 49ers, beginning at noon.
