Walk-Off Home Run Caps Off Doubleheader

By Bryant Marks
SOUTH PRINCE GEORGE, VA – Richard Bland College softball finally played their first home matchup of the season against Monroe College out of New York and sweeps their opponents thanks to a huge walk-off home run in the second game on Saturday.

Now 6-2 on the season, the team will finish the last game of their three-game home series against Monroe on Sunday at 12:30 PM.   "We're just getting started," says Head Coach Troy Jacobs after today's big set of games.

Game 1

The first game saw the Statesmen come out swinging against the Monroe Mustangs, jumping on the board big with a three-run first inning.  Madison Kelly first capitalized from an infield error by Monroe off a Misty Even grounder to put RBC up 1-0.  Even would then score off a Madison Rice big double, next batter.  To add more onto that Kiara Toler would single to right field, scoring Rice and making it a three-run Richard Bland first inning.  After the first inning, Rachel Watson found her groove in the circle.  She struck out the side in the top of the second inning.  Monroe finally scored a run after a passed ball and dropped third strike in the third inning.  In the bottom half of the third, Haley Godfrey knocked in a run off of a line-drive double.  Monroe would score two more runs both off of errors.  Despite that Monroe could not break through Watson's dominating performance in the circle in the first game.  Watson went the whole 7 innings only allowing 0 earned runs on only 3 hits.  She struck out 11 batters in Game 1.  Madison Rice went 2 for 3 with 1 RBI and 2 Runs and Kiara Toler went 2 for 3 with 1 RBI.

 Game 2

The second game of the doubleheader again saw the runs come in bunches from both sides. The Statesmen started the game off with their bats still hot.  In the first inning, Madison Rice picked up where she left off from Game 1 with a one-out triple that scored both Misty Even and Madison Kelly.  Monroe would knock in their first run of the two games that was not off an error with a one-run single in the third inning.  Bland would answer in the bottom half of the inning with a six-run show.  The inning would get started after a bases-loaded walk that brought home Kelley.  Haley Godfrey and Teri Jackson would single back-to-back singles, driving in two runs and one run, respectively.  Jamie Fields would single two batters later which scored one run and Madison Kelly would double, driving in one.  The score after the third inning stood at 8-1 in favor of RBC.  Monroe would find their swing in the top of the fourth and drive in six runs of their own making it a one-run contest with the Statesmen coming back up to bat.  RBC would add two more runs to pad their lead in the bottom of the fourth from off a Kiara Toler groundout and an error.  The teams would go scoreless until the last inning when Monroe found life in a final stand, scoring three runs to tie the ball game and force the home team to come back up to bat.  The Statesmen would need a just one run to call it a game and did they do just that.  With the first batter up in the inning, Teri Jackson dug in behind the plate and blasted a walk-off home run to send RBC home victorious.  Ellen Palya started the game in the circle and went seven innings, gave up 6 earned runs on 13 hits, and struck out a season-high 14 batters.  Teri Jackson was this game's hero though, going 2 for 3 with the big walk-off home run.  Haley Godfrey went 2 for 4 with 2 RBI and 1 Run.