BATON ROUGE - After pitching 27 innings in less than 48 hours, all Ashley Kirchberg could do was watch Vanessa Soto's fly ball.

Under other circumstances, it was a lazy, easy out, one that she had induced and had nestled into left fielder Danyele Gomez' glove scores of times ... one like so many others that had helped Kirchberg go 25-1 in the regular season for the University of Louisiana softball team.

This one, though, came with one out in the seventh inning of the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional championship game, and was plenty deep enough to score LSU right fielder Quinlan Duhon from third base.

When the St. Thomas More product scampered home, well ahead of a desperation throw from left field, the host Tigers had a 5-4 victory and a berth in next weekend's NCAA Super Regional.

All Kirchberg had was a tired arm, and little else left. Raising her arm past waist-high for the ritual post-game handslaps was an effort unto itself.

The rest of the story

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com