By: Mary Hart, USU Eastern Sports Information Contributor
The USU Eastern Lady Eagles headed to Henderson, Nevada this weekend, January 30 and 31 to play in the CSN Kickoff Classic. Overall the team had four wins and only one loss on the weekend.
They started play on Friday January 30 at 10:30 a.m. against Jones College. Unfortunately, the game ended in a 17-0 loss.
The Eagles then took on Central Arizona College and came out with a 13-12 win. The Lady Eagles started the game off with a 2-0 lead but Central Arizona then came back with five runs. USU Eastern did not give up and during the second inning came back and scored four more runs. Central Arizona would then take the lead one more time but the Eagles were able to come back in the 7th inning to take the win.
The Eagles then went to play Northwest Kansas Technical College and got a 17-2 win. The Eagles started the first inning off hot with scoring 12 runs! They only allowed NKTC to score one in the second inning and one in the fourth and ended the game in the fifth inning in a run rule.
Saturday January 31 the Eagles had their first game against 16th nationally ranked Yavapai College. Our Eagles started the game off with a 3-0 lead in the first inning and then a 7-0 lead going into the fourth inning. This would be the end of scoring for our Eagles and Yavapai was able to get 6 runs in, but the Lady Eagles held them to just that and took the exciting win.
The last game of the tournament was against Eastern Arizona College. This game was a game of battling back. The first inning was scoreless for both teams but in the second inning Eastern Arizona took a 3-0 lead but luckily our girls were able to tie it up in the third inning. Arizona then went to take the lead again in the top of the fifth inning, but the Eagles came right back and tied it up again. In the seventh inning Arizona once again took the lead 6-5 but at the bottom of the inning Sophomore Alicia Cruz drove in freshman Jenna Sutliff and Marisa Bowman for a walk off win!
“The way we played together as a unit is scary. We are truly unstoppable. All our fate is in our hands and I think we proved that this weekend not only to ourselves but to all the other teams that overlooked us as well. I’m excited to see what this season has in store for us. After our terrible lose I think we as a whole stepped our game up and it showed that we are hungry. We trusted our bats and all the extra work we have been putting in and more. Importantly trusted each other,” says Jenna Sutliff.
“It was a good weekend and we learned a lot. Despite our first game being a loss, we pulled together and started to play to our potential. It was fun to see everyone have each other’s backs. When someone didn’t have a good at bat the next girl up would pull thru and keep it going. The games we won this weekend were against well respected programs and they were huge wins for us. Im proud if the girls for the grit they showed and their refusal to lose even when we were down,” says head coach Shelby Shurtliff.
The Lady Eagles will be heading to Yuma, Arizona next week, February 6-8, to play in the Great Western Shootout.