It was a wild day of play for Colorado Christian as they experienced their first conference loss 8-3 in game 3 vs the Mountain Lions and then went to 10 innings in game 4, just barely grabbing the win 5-4. 
 
Christian suffered a tough loss, and without the three fielding errors they made it could have been a different ball game.  But in the Cougars' defense, UCCS looked like a different team on day two of the series.  Their starting pitcher #8 Taylor Reidhead threw a full game with 148 pitches and forced 7 fly-outs and 8 ground-outs, which isn't seen much from the Cougar at-bats.  She also held CCU to only four hits, their lowest this season. 
 
Head Coach Shanon Hays stated "It was one of those days for us.  The game we lost, we made two bad pitches and they made us pay.  Before that we made defensive mistakes that set the table.  Walks, errors, and hit batters are a bad combo". 
 
Starting pitcher Kenzie Mattey threw 4.2 innings, and allowed 8 runs off 5 hits, walking four.  The Mountain Lions scored three runs in the third from errors and the one run in the fourth was from a passed ball by the Cougs.  Mattey was relieved in the fifth inning after a hit by pitch, walk, single, and another walk to score a run.  Sarah Probasco was on the mound, but UCCS' center fielder knocked a triple into center that scored three more runs.  At this point the Mountain Lions were up 8-3 after the fifth inning.
 
The Cougars three runs were all scored in the fourth inning starting when Shelby Fusich had the Cougars first hit of the day down the middle.  This advanced Shelbie Day, pinch runner for Charlotte Romero who reached base off a walk.  Stephanie Day was then walked.  Alyssa Hanks hit a hard ground ball to short resulting in a fielder's choice-getting Fusich out at third, but scoring a run as Shelbie Day crossed the plate.  The Cougars freshman shortstop Kacie Burger stepped up to the plate and hit a double down the left line (2 RBI) scoring Day and Hanks. 
 
CCU tried hard to get something going around the bases in the final three innings, but fell short 8-3 after seven. 
 
Game 4 of the series went 10 innings.  UCCS was once again the first to score starting in the third inning.  Back to the Mountain Lions #8 Reidhead who took the win in game 3 on the mound and also hits…. Well she hit a hard three-run home run to left center.  Then with a runner on first, UCCS bunted the ball to the Cougars third baseman who tried for the out at third base, seeing the runner round second, but threw it away into the left field fence.  This scored an unearned run, and had UCCS up 4-0. 
 
CCU battled back though and scored three runs in the bottom of the third.  The Cougars hits weren't big, but they had runners on base and that's all they needed to score.  Starting the inning Carly Perry singled, Kendall Yasui singled, Charlotte Romero singled—scoring Perry, Shelby Fusich singled, and then Stephanie Day singled—scoring pinch runner Shelbie Day and Kendall Yasui. 
 
The fourth inning was silent from both squads and then Christian scored the tying run in the bottom of the fifth.  The Cougars speedster Kendall Yasui reached first from a perfect bunt, stole second and then scored off Stephanie Day's single up the middle.  It was a perfect set-up for success and now the game was 4-4. 
 
The next five innings….so 6,7,8,9, and top 10 were brutal.  Not only were there too many foul balls on both sides (if there is such a thing) causing long at-bats, but the Cougars were grounding out, flying out, and making bad running decisions.  Coach Hays remarked "I felt like the win really hurt us.  We kept hitting it hard but right to them and the win probably held 3-4 balls in the park".
 
Jennifer Romero started the game on the mound for Christian, but was relieved by Kenzie Mattey (starter in the first game of the day) who did an incredible job against UCCS.  Mattey came in during the fourth inning and allowed only one hit, struck out seven Lions, and forced 10 ground-outs.  With Mattey on the mound, UCCS could not score, which gave the Cougs an opportunity for a walk-off.  And in the bottom of the 10^th inning senior #12 DP Letty Valenzuela did just that.  A hard walk-off single to right center field scored the winning run as the Cougs were victorious 5-4. 
 
"We battled and came back to win the game and series.  So as bad as we played I was happy about that.  We have to give UCCS a lot of credit.  They battled hard today."
 
CCU won the series 3-1 vs UCCS.  Their record is 28-3 overall and 19-1 in conference play. 
See series stats HERE
 
CCU has cancelled their games vs Eastern New Mexico University this Tuesday, March 27^th due to forecasted weather.  They will continue their season vs Chadron State March 30^th.