Chattanooga outlasted Mercer Thursday in the first game of Day Two of the Southern Conference Tournament, winning 8-7 in extra innings on a walk-off single.<\/p>\n
Olivia Lipari was hit to lead off the bottom of the ninth. Acelynn Sellers, already with a SoCon Tournament tying record three home runs, laid down a bunt that was placed perfectly between first and the circle and both runners were safe. Baileigh Pitts laced a shot into right field to load the bases with no outs.<\/p>\n
Jayce Pudy took a 1-2 pitch down the line in right, driving in Lipari for the game winner.<\/p>\n
Chattanooga led 7-0 after five innings, but the Mercer bats awoke to tie the game and force extras.<\/p>\n
Kailey Snell led off the first with a single into left and advanced to second on a sac bunt. With two outs, Sellers put the Mocs up 2-0 with the first of three two-run homers for the Rocky Face, Ga., senior.<\/p>\n
The third started off with another single from Snell through the left side. Camryn Cernuto again bunted her over to second and she reached third on a fly out to right from Lipari. Sellers home run hit off the Wofford scoreboard and put UTC up 4-0.<\/p>\n
The Mocs added a fifth run in the fourth. Lexi Cooley singled up the middle followed by a single from Zoe Wright. Snell singled to center field, scoring Cooley to make it 5-0.<\/p>\n
Sellers completed the hat trick in the seventh. Lipari led off the inning with a single. Sellers third home run of the game, tying Reagan Armour \u201922 for the SoCon Tournament record, was to center for a 7-0 Chattanooga advantage.<\/p>\n
In the sixth, Mercer scored four runs. A bases loaded single scored the first. Two more singles and a ground out drove in three more to make it 7-4.<\/p>\n
Chattanooga had runners at the corners with nobody out and Wright stole second. However, the Bears would get the next three out to end the Mocs threat.<\/p>\n
Mercer loaded the bases on three walks and a single scored the fifth run. The next came on a bases loaded walk and a play at the plate that went wide allowed the tying run to score.<\/p>\n
A runner was left stranded for the Mocs in the seventh and the game went on to extra innings.<\/p>\n
A walk put the first runner on for Mercer. A sac bunt, however didn\u2019t fall as Purdy picked up the ball at the plate, firing down to second for the out. She then got the second out on a caught stealing and the final out came on a pop up to Snell at short.<\/p>\n
Snell doubled with two outs in the eighth but was left stranded and Mercer went three-up, three-down in the top of the ninth.<\/p>\n
Purdy\u2019s rope down the right field line was close enough for a review, but it held up and the Mocs grabbed the win that took three hours and 13 minutes.<\/p>\n
Chattanooga advances to take on No. 3 Samford Friday morning at 10 a.m. at Hope Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chattanooga outlasted Mercer Thursday in the first game of Day Two of the Southern Conference Tournament, winning 8-7…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,2336,5,2316,2323,2314,2317,2313,3696,642,2330,2333,2335,1987,2334,19,2310,2328,2304,2308,4,2305,2303,2322,2307,1210,185,2339,2324,2560,2338,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-14148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-ball-games","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-baseball-competitions","13":"tag-baseball-events","14":"tag-baseball-finals","15":"tag-baseball-games","16":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","17":"tag-bunt-baseball","18":"tag-extra-innings","19":"tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","20":"tag-grass-field-surfaces","21":"tag-home-run","22":"tag-inning","23":"tag-lawn-games","24":"tag-major-league-baseball","25":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","26":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","27":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","28":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","29":"tag-mlb","30":"tag-mlb-playoffs","31":"tag-mlb-postseason","32":"tag-october-sporting-events","33":"tag-outdoor-sports","34":"tag-softball","35":"tag-sports","36":"tag-sports-competitions","37":"tag-sports-events","38":"tag-stolen-base","39":"tag-team-activities","40":"tag-team-sports","41":"tag-turf-sports","42":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}