Box Score BENTONVILLE, Ark. – Amanda Berdon hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 10th inning to score Jessica Greene to propel the Harding softball team over East Central 4-3 in the first round of the Great American Conference Tournament. The game lasted 2 hours and 50 minutes which was the longest game in GAC Tournament history.
The Lady Bisons will play the No. 1 seed Southeastern Oklahoma in the final game on Thursday at Tiger Athletic Complex. Links to the live stats and live video will be on hardingsports.com
Harding, the No. 4 seed, improved to 32-24 overall and East Central, the No. 5 seed, falls to 32-24 overall.
With the international tie breaker rule in effect, Courtney Derrick drew a walk for the Lady Bisons to put runners at first and second in the bottom of the 10th inning. Kinsey Beck laid down a sacrifice bunt that moved the runners over. Carolyn Clayton drew other walk to load the bases. Berdon hit her first sacrifice fly of the season to give Harding its first GAC Tournament win.
Harding got on the board first in the first inning when Clayton singled in Derrick. East Central took a 3-1 lead, knocking in a run in the second, fourth and fifth innings. Harding tied the game in the bottom of the sixth inning when Kimmy Hendricks singled through the left side to score Brookelynn Moon and Emily Jones.
The Lady Bisons had five hits in the game, all by different players.
Amber Rollins (18-11) picked up the win in her 22nd complete game for Harding. Rollins gave up seven hits and struck out five. Lacey Paulk (5-4) got the loss for East Central. She pitched 4 1/3rd innings in relief.
