April 18, 2015
| 6 | 7 |
| Maryland Softball Stadium | College Park, Md. | |
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| FINAL STATISTICS |
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Despite yet another grand slam off the bat of catcher Alyssa VanDerveer (Hillsborough, N.J.), the Penn State softball team fell to Maryland 7-6, Saturday on a walk-off two run homer in the bottom of the seventh.
The Lions held a 6-4 lead entering the final frame but Maryland put two on with no one out after a walk and a single, which chased starter Jessica Cummings (Owings, Md.) out of the game. Marlaina Laubach (Northampton, Pa.) then entered the contest with the tying run at first and the winning run at the plate and promptly got to work.
A sac bunt moved the runners over to second and third and a pop fly to left accounted for the Terps' second out of the inning, while allowing the runner at third to tag up and score, making it 6-5. Then down to its final out Maryland shocked the Penn State faithful occupying the first base stands as catcher Shannon Bustillos launched a ball over the left field wall for the walk-off win.
The game's beginning sported a vastly different theme than its ending however as VanDerveer came to the plate in the first inning with the bases loaded and slapped her third grand slam of the season to make it 4-0. Back-to-back singles by Mollie Sorenson (Stevenson Ranch, Calif.) and Shelby Miller (Sugar Land, Texas) followed by a Macy Jones (Ashburn, Va.) walk allowed for VanDerveer's grand trifecta.
Maryland chipped away at the early Nittany Lion lead, adding a run in the first and two in the second to make it 4-3. The Terps then tied it up in the fourth on a solo home run to center field.
The tie would not stand for long though as Amanda Lehotak's squad quickly grabbed it back in the top of the fifth off Jones' RBI single. PSU added some insurance in the top of the seventh after a passed ball allowed Lexi Knief (Ramsey, N.J.) to come home from third and make it 6-4, setting the stage for the heartbreaking bottom of the seventh.
Sorenson (3-4) and Jones (2-3) both had multi-hit days as Penn State added to its already impressive grand slam resume with its seventh of 2015.
Laubach was tagged with the hard luck loss and moves to 10-8 on the season while Penn State fell to 23-22 and 6-10 in B1G play. The Lions and Terps will be back at it in the series finale, set for Sunday at 11 a.m. in College Park. The game will be televised live on the Big Ten Network.