In the third annual Strike Out Cancer event the MSU Eagles came up short in both games of a double-header against Tennessee Tech, (3-1, 7-3) in Morehead Sunday evening.
However, on Saturday MSU captured a game-one victory over the Golden Eagles 6-4 and the second leg of a double-header that day was rescheduled for Sunday due to inclement weather.
On Sunday the two teams wore pink uniforms in support of cancer awareness and $1,460.00 was raised for the American Cancer Society and it also marked the third straight year the event raised over $1,000.
Though it was a rough day for MSU on the field, Coach Holly Bruder said in the end it was for a good cause.
"Definitely a great cause and a great event — trying to bring to Morehead the awareness of what such a terrible disease this is and what we can do," Bruder said. "So we did our part today trying to make the public aware of this disease and try to find a cure for it, hopefully, in my lifetime.
The rain held off, so we were very happy with the outcome," Bruder said.
In the doubleheader on Sunday Morehead State was unable to find any consistency offensively or defensively stranding 20 runners on base and suffering six fielding errors.
"Today was a rough day," MSU Head Coach Holly Bruder said. "I told the team this was the worst I've seen them play since February. When your working kinks out early in the season you hope you have those games in February or in nonconference. Unfortunately we had it in April during conference."
In the first inning of the finale the Golden Eagles took advantage of one costly MSU error by MSU shortstop Kayla Ashbrook and scored two runs, which was part of a 3-run inning for Tennessee Tech.
In the following inning, with two outs, another error by Ashbrook, who ended up with three of the four team errors, allowed TTU's Chanelle Spalding to come around to score. Lacie Coquerille follwed with a RBI-double to give TTU a commanding 5-0 lead.
"You can't give anything to teams like Tennessee Tech, who's historically used to wining four or five outs and that's what we did a handful of times today, especially in the second game," Bruder said.
Offensively, the Eagles left 13 runners on base and seniors Ashley Archer and Bethany Ellis had a rough day at the plate going 0-for-6 and leaving six runners on base. The subpar performance was in part due to TTU's Holly Thomas pitching. She struck out seven batters and allowed zero earned runs on just five hits.
"We left double-digit runners on base," Bruder said. "Normally I don't worry about the LOB's (runners left on base) that means we're doing something right and getting kids on base. However, today that became a factor, in five out of seven innings we had runners in scoring position and in five out of seven innings we had the lead-off run get on a base and we just didn't come up with the timely hitting."
Despite the loss, Alex Gjevre had an okay performance on the mound striking out five Golden Eagles. She gave up six runs on nine hits, but only one of the runs was earned.
MSU dropped the early game on Sunday 3-1 due to inconsistency in fielding and hitting in key situations.
In Saturday's game MSU grabbed the first game over TTU 6-4. With the score tied 4-4 MSU senior Bianca Cardenas hit a triple to bring around the go-ahead run for the eventual win.
Morehead State drops to 25-19 overall and to 14-6 in the OVC, but still remains in second place in OVC standings behind UT-Martin, who is 39-9 overall and 16-3 in the OVC.