One inning of aggressive baserunning did the trick for the Lincoln softball team.
"It paid off today," Lincoln coach Chad Kerr said after the Blue Tigers won 3-2 against William Jewell in the second game of Thursday's doubleheader at LU Softball Field. "There were a couple times earlier in the year in Arkansas where I ran someone right into an out. When you're a coach, you have a millisecond to make a decision."
The Blue Tigers took the extra base on a pair of plays in the sixth inning, which included Mykenzie Livesay scoring the game's deciding run.
Macie Kinsey roped a one-out double into the right-center field gap. Livesay scored from first base on a close play at the plate that led William Jewell coach Dustin Combs to argue the call.
Kerr didn't hesitate to send Livesay home, saying it would have taken a perfect relay throw to get her.
"Kenzie bounced off of (the catcher), fell down and touched the plate as the girl was catching it and tagging her," Kerr said. "From their angle, I would have lost my mind too, but I'm sitting right there watching it and that was a good call."
Earlier in the inning, Kiley Kerr reached on an infield single and advanced to second base on Livesay's single to right-center. Initially, Kerr hesitated and stayed at second, but then made a late break toward third base and made it easily.
Kerr scored on a sacrifice fly by the next batter, Tori Nienhueser, to tie the game at 2.
"We have really smart baserunning as a team," Kiley Kerr said. "When we get people on base, we start hitting the ball and girls throw (the ball) around. We don't have to have anyone tell us, we just know to go."
Lincoln had just four hits in the game, but they all came in the fourth and sixth innings. Nienhueser hit a solo home run to left-center - her team-high third homer this season - for the Blue Tigers' first hit of the game in the fourth to tie the score at 1.
"That was huge," Chad Kerr said.
Meanwhile, Lincoln pitcher Sarah Westhoff scattered nine hits in her complete-game win. William Jewell stranded at least one runner on base each inning - 10 total - and left two on base in the seventh, as Ashlyn Sutton hit a grounder to Lincoln third baseman Jordan Lawson, who stepped on the bag at third for the force out to end the game, snapping the Blue Tigers' five-game losing streak.
Westhoff, who won her first game of the season Thursday, allowed one walk and struck out three. William Jewell scored both runs on two-out RBI singles in the third and fifth innings by Brooke Bernard and Taylor Alarcon.
"She really showed that she wanted that game today," Kerr said of Westhoff. "She's hitting midseason form. She really showed some grit today and had a good performance."
Lincoln's two wins earlier in the season were run-rule wins against Grambling State and Langston at the HBCU Softball Classic. Kerr, however, didn't mind his team having to grind it out for win No. 3 this season.
"I love run-rule wins," Kerr said. "We had a couple of them against a Division I school and an NAIA school, but that doesn't really show what your team is made of. This 3-2 win is something that shows the tenacity of this team."
The Blue Tigers dropped the first game 5-3, giving up three runs in the top of the sixth inning.
Kiley Kerr scored all three runs for Lincoln. She went 3-for-4, leading off the bottom of the first inning with a triple and added singles in the third and fifth innings.
"She had a monster game," Chad Kerr said of his daughter. "I was real proud of her that game. That kind of set the tone early in that one, that this was going to be a competitive affair."
Lincoln tallied seven hits in the game, getting RBI singles from Livesay and Nienhueser. Unlike game two, Kerr said his team struggled to bunch hits together in the first contest.
"We've had games where we've had 11 or 12 hits, and we lose the game," Kerr said. "We scatter the hits. We'll have seven hits, one per inning. I've been preaching that we have to cluster them together."
Madison Ragar took the loss for the Blue Tigers. She pitched 51/3 innings and allowed five runs (three earned) on eight hits with one walk and one strikeout. Jordan Lawson closed the game, pitching the last 12/3 innings.
Lindsay Glynn went 2-for-3 with three RBI in the win for William Jewell (10-12).
Lincoln (3-19) will return to Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association action today at Washburn. The doubleheader is scheduled for a 2 p.m. start.
"In the past, sometimes we come out lackadaisical," Kiley Kerr said. "That was a good GLVC team and we treated them like the No. 1 team in the nation when we came out. We were intense the whole time and made plays. That's what we have to do."