April 28, 2007
OXFORD, Ohio - Junior Halle Popson's solo home run in the bottom of the seventh inning broke a scoreless tie and lifted the Miami University softball team (22-32-1; 10-7 MAC) to a 1-0 walkoff win over the West Division leading Eastern Michigan Eagles (19-18; 9-4 MAC) Saturday afternoon at Miami Softball Stadium. With one out in the seventh, Popson lined the first pitch she saw from Eastern Michigan's Aimee Woodrum over the rightfield fence, propelling Miami to its eighth win in the past nine games.
Popson's dramatic hit gave Miami its first walkoff win since April 19, 2006, but it did not overshadow the impressive pitching performance of freshman righthander Meredith Linch. Tossing her fourth complete-game shutout of the season, Linch (11-17) struck out four and scattered six hits in 7.0 innings. Shutting down an Eastern Michigan offense that had entered the contest with a conference-best .283 batting average, Linch also allowed two earned runs or fewer for the 11th time in 12 conference starts.
Miami wriggled out of trouble in each of the first three innings, as Eastern Michigan stranded six runners over the first three frames. After Lauren Clark and Stephanie Sabo had back-to-back hits to lead off the game, Linch retired three straight, including a pair of strikeouts. Linch also stranded a pair of runners in both the second and third innings, as she worked through two one-out singles in the second and a pair of walks in the third.
The RedHawks put runners in scoring position in four of the first five innings but could not push across a run. Miami's best opportunity to score came in the bottom of the fifth when senior Leslie Macedo and junior Christine Bills put together back-to-back two out hits, but Macedo and Bills were left stranded when a strikeout ended the inning.
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Over the final four innings, Linch retired 12 of the final 14 batters she faced, allowing only a fifth-inning single and a sixth-inning single. She also retired the side in order in the seventh, setting the stage for Popson's walkoff home run.
After a strikeout to start the bottom of the seventh inning, Popson ripped her second home run of the season off the wall of Miami's indoor hitting facility, which sits just beyond the rightfield fence. It was Popson's 13th RBI of the season, and the hit moved her within six of tying Miami's single-season hits record of 74. Popson has 68 hits through 55 games.
Miami guns for a two-game sweep of Eastern Michigan tomorrow at 1 p.m. GAMETRACKER is available for the contest.
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