Western (19-7) missed out on recording its 20th victory of the season after stranding eight runners on base, despite outhitting its host (seven to five). Two of Tennessee Tech’s hits however were solo homers, giving Bonnie Bynum enough run support to knock off the Toppers.
WKU returns to action this weekend when it heads to Bloomington, Ind., for its last regular-season tournament of the year, the Hoosier Invitational (March 27-28). The Hilltoppers open with Indiana and St. Louis on Friday before facing Notre Dame on Saturday.
Western Kentucky 1, Tennessee Tech 0
Silver scattered two hits and walked one en route to her fourth complete-game shutout of the year to get the better of TTU’s Tia Brenning (5-6) in a classic pitchers’ duel. Sophomore Renikka Toliver scored the go-ahead run in the top of the third off a double steal, in which junior Renita Pennington was nailed at second, and the 1-0 lead held up thanks to Silver’s commanding performance. Western’s ace fanned seven and prevented TTU to advance a runner past second in earning her 10th win of the season.
Silver struck out the side in the first inning and retired 10 in-a-row through the middle innings. Brenning gave up four hits over the first three innings but settled down to retire 10 of the final 11 Toppers.
Junior Dana Rey, who led all players with a game-high two hits, got things going for Western in the third with a lead-off single. Toliver came in to run for Rey and quickly made her way over to third after a sacrifice bunt by junior Riley Garcia and a single by Pennington.
Tennessee Tech 4, Western Kentucky 1
Sophomore Adrienne Lathrop (7-3) received zero run support from the WKU offense and gave up three runs off three hits (two of which were homers) in 3.2 innings of work en route to her third loss of the year. The Hilltoppers mustered just one run in the game, off an RBI bunt single from Pennington in the top of the seventh, long after Lathrop had exited the game.
The Golden Eagles scoring drought didn’t last long as TTU pushed across a run in the bottom of the first compliments of an RBI single by Kacy Bennett (scoring Marianne Novac). Novac’s name came up again in the bottom of the third when she belted her second homer of the year, a solo shot to make it 2-0. Dana Yates followed with her first career home run in the fourth to push TTU’s edge to 3-0 and knock Lathrop out of the game.
WKU had a prime chance to cut into the Tennessee Tech lead in the top of the fifth after Rey and sophomore Bailey Rolfs opened the inning with consecutive singles. But Bynum responded by retiring the next three batters to work her way out of the jam. Things didn’t get any better for the Hilltoppers in the sixth as junior Shelly Floyd (hit by a pitch) and senior Sam Hansen (single) reached base to open the frame. But once again Bynum closed the door on WKU, striking out two of the next three batters to preserve her 4-0 lead.
Western showed signs of life in each of the final three innings, the last of which freshman Lindsay Gatti sparked with a one-out double, but never managed to capitalize. TTU’s Bynum fanned seven in the game to improve to 6-5 on the year. Bennett led the Golden Eagles with two hits and two RBI.
