Softball | 3/12/2020 8:44:00 PM

    GREENSBURG, Pa. – The West Liberty University softball team came out on the short end of a marathon 14-13 non-conference slugfest against West Chester (Pa.) here Thursday afternoon in a non-conference game at the Seton Hill University Softball Complex.
    Coach Herb Minch's Hilltoppers (7-9) led twice in extra innings but couldn't hold off the hard-hitting Rams (12-3), who pounded out 18 hits and cranked out a pair of home runs in a game that took nearly three hours to complete.
    West Chester, which carried a 10-game winning streak into the afternoon, was only three outs away from a 4-3 win when WLU's Annie Paterson led off the top of the seventh with a home run to force extra innings.
    Kaitlyn Stress singled home Kat Donzella in the top of the eighth for a 5-4 Hilltopper lead but West Chester answered with a single run of its own in the bottom of the frame to knot the score again.
    Both teams rolled out the heavy artillery in the ninth.
    Highlighted by Paterson's three-run double, West Liberty sent a dozen batters to the plate and combined six hits with two WCU errors, a pair of stolen bases and a wild pitch to score eight runs and take a 13-5 lead.
    Amazingly, it wasn't enough.
    West Chester opened the bottom of the ninth with a pair of two-run home runs and never took its foot off the gas. A pair of bases-loaded walks followed six straight hits before Bri Gardner completed the comeback with a bases-loaded double – the 10th consecutive Ram to reach base in the inning.
    Stress and Paterson led West Liberty's 13-hit barrage. Stress matched Paterson's four RBIs with a double and two singles while Haley Collett had two singles and chased home a pair of runs.
    Allie Cook had two singles and an RBI while Conner Assif and Kelly Mullins also had multi-hit games. Kate Meloun singled and drove in a run.
  West Liberty                                       300 000 118 – 13  14  3
West Chester                                     200 200 019 – 14  18  3
     WLU: Paterson (3SO, 1W), Bonnett (9) (0SO, 1W), Garcia lp (0SO, 2W) and Donzella. Stress D, 2S, 4rbi; Paterson HR, D, 4rbi; Collett 2S, 2rbi; Cook 2S, rbi; Assif 2S; Mullins 2S; K.Meloun S, rbi
     WCU: Gearhart (1SO, 1W), Hanshaw (2) (1SO, 2W), Kavanagh (8) (2SO, 0W), Butler wp (0SO, 1W) and Kopinetz. Garber HR, D, S, 4rbi; Aguilar 3S, 2rbi; Kopinetz D, S, rbi; Stump 2S, rbi; Klemas 2S; Kim 2S; Maseth HR, 2rbi