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Tolfa Terrific in Softball's Comeback Win and Near-Upset Friday
March 21, 2009 | Softball
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Princeton played two very different softball games Friday afternoon, both giving the Tigers cause for optimism as the Ivy League season draws near.
Not long after Kelsey Quist's two-run home run lifted the Tigers to an 8-7 walkoff win over Winthrop, sophomore Michelle Tolfa went toe-to-toe with the lineup from No. 4 Stanford in a 1-0 defeat.
"This shows you the type of team that we really can be," Princeton coach Trina Salcido said. "This is what we're capable of doing."
The Tigers (5-6) were down by three heading into their final at-bat against Winthrop (9-13) in a back-and-forth game in which the Eagles scored three runs across the sixth and seventh innings to break a 4-4 tie.
Following a quiet Princeton sixth, Brittney Scott and Nicole Ontiveros reached to start the seventh, and three batters later, Kathryn Welch singled both home to cut the deficit to 7-6. Quist followed with her clout down the left-field line, her second of the season and of the week, both of which put Princeton ahead late in games.
The comeback made a winner out of Tolfa (4-4), who threw the last three innings in relief and has pitched in all five Princeton games this week with three complete-game efforts. But Tolfa's best was yet to come.
Dueling against Stanford senior Missy Penna (16-1), who brought an 0.61 ERA into the game, as well as a Stanford (25-1) lineup that was hitting .324 on the season, Tolfa put on an admirable performance.
No Cardinal batter made it past second base over the first four innings, a fact that comes with great credit to sophomore catcher Brittney Scott and senior shortstop Welch, who teamed up to cut down three runners trying to steal second during the span.
Another catcher, however, made her bid to steal the show. Stanford's Rosey Neill, the Cardinal's leader in home runs on the season, hammered a Tolfa pitch over the centerfield fence to start the fifth.
The floodgates that opened last season in Stanford's 10-0, five-inning perfect game win over Princeton remained shut. Tolfa went right back to work, letting the Cardinal no further than first base in the sixth.
"I feel great. I've been pretty off-and-on and this was a really good way for me to get my confidence up," Tolfa said. "This shows what I can do when I have my stuff working well."
Penna, unfortunately for the Tigers, bent but never broke. She no-hit Princeton over the first 5 2/3 innings, including a streak of retiring 15 straight batters between a Kelsey VandeBergh walk in the first inning and a squibber of a single in the sixth, also to VandeBergh.
The no-hit buster moved Nicole Ontiveros, who had been hit by a pitch two batters before, to second with two out and Welch coming to bat with a .450 average. Penna got Welch to ground out after avoiding Jamie Lettire, a third-team All-America last season who was brought on to pinch hit earlier in the inning, with a pop-up.
Princeton again had two runners on with one out the seventh on an outfield single by Kristin Arguedas and a walk to Megan Weidrick, but Penna got the next two Tigers to save the game and prevent the upset.
The Tigers will have three more games in the Stanford-hosted tournament against Santa Clara and Pacific Saturday and Winthrop Sunday.