AMHERST – Kiara Oliver had been playing with fire for most of Thursday.
George Washington would string together a series of positive plays and then Oliver, UMass’ sophomore ace, would extinguish the threat at the last possible moment. Yet in the eighth inning, Oliver couldn’t tiptoe her way out of trouble to save the Minutewomen.
The third-seeded Colonials finally got the two-out hits they’d been missing in extras with back-to-back singles up the middle to advance past second-seeded UMass 2-1 in the second round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament at Sortino Field.
George Washington advances (41-15) to face No. 5 Saint Joseph’s, which upset No. 1 Fordham earlier Thursday, in the winner’s brack. UMass (25-21) is back in action immediately in an elimination game against Saint Louis.
The eighth inning started off poorly for UMass with Melissa Garcia misplaying a ground ball and letting it roll between her legs. Oliver then plunked Jenna Cone before recording the first out, but that left runners on second and third. The sophomore fielded a comebacker for the second out, setting the stage for Alessandra Ponce.
George Washington’s designated player smoked the one-out pitch back up the middle to score the game’s first run. Elena Shelepack followed with her third hit of the game in a nearly identical location to Ponce’s drive to double the lead.
UMass finally showed some life on offense in the bottom half of the inning by putting runners on second and third with one out. However, Kaycee Carbone had a drive caught on the warning track, allowing Erin Stacevicz to score. Then Garcia struck out meekly to end the game with the tying run on third.
The Colonials had been knocking on the door against Oliver all day. They put runners on second and third with no outs in the second inning only for Oliver to escape with some help from third baseman Kendra Allen, who snared a sure-fire hit at third base for the first out.
In the seventh, a leadoff double from George Washington was bunted over to third base and Oliver once again was one mistake away from losing the shutout. However, she induced a pair of routine groundouts to keep giving her teammates a chance at the plate.
The Minutewomen struggled to solve Sierra Lange for most of the day, finishing with eight strikeouts against the Colonials’ first-team pitcher. They started to show some life in the sixth inning when Hannah Bunker led off the frame with a single and worked her way to third before Lange induced a pop fly to save herself.
That set the stage for the bottom of the seventh when UMass had its best chance to win the game. Danielle Ellis worked a walk and Allen was then hit on the elbow to put two runners on base. Jackie Kelley, who pinch ran for Ellis, was called out on a close play at third and then pinch-hitter Alyssa Lyon couldn’t hold up her swing and weakly grounded out on a checked swing to end the threat.