Candice Freel and her teammates will get a much-needed rest before traveling to Tallahassee where they should be heading for the NCAA Softball Regional Tournament. Freel is going to need it after pitching 38 2/3 straight innings.
As the FAU Lady Owls softball team prepared to defend its title at home last weekend, everyone knew that starting pitcher Freel would be getting most of the load but no one could have envisioned how much that would actually be.
To start the tournament, Amanda Morin was on the mound and behind an early run she took a 1-0 shutout into the sixth inning against six seed Gardner-Webb. Then with two runners on and two outs, coach Joan Joyce turned to her biggest player to bring home the victory.
Freel came into the game and struck out the only batter she faced in the sixth and then finished off the Bulldogs in the seventh.
The win put FAU in a night game against Stetson University and Freel found herself on the mound again.
The two teams found themselves in a marathon game that tied the record for innings played in an A-Sun Tournament game at 15. This game had everything, including the sprinklers turning on at 11:30 p.m. for the nightly watering.
Finally at about 1:10 a.m. Friday morning Stetson scored the final run and put FAU into the losers bracket with a 3-2 victory.
Just 12 hours later the Owls called upon their ace Freel one more time to face Troy State.
Needing a victory to stay alive in the tournament the Owls again played into extra innings. Freel remained in the game and added to her inning total but would not allow more than three hits the entire game and recorded her first shutout of the weekend.
While Freel was showing off on the mound she also received impressive fielding behind her. The best coming off of two fabulous diving catches from freshman Jenna Lopez at shortstop. Lopez fielded the first against Gardner-Webb diving to her left and the second against Troy State showing her range to the right.
Freel got all the offense she needed in the bottom of the ninth when Jenn Piazza drew a bases loaded walk to score Marlene Lopez for the only run of the game and eliminated the Trojans.
Still on the brink of elimination, the Owls advanced to play UCF Friday evening. The Golden Knights were undefeated in the tournament and would have given anything to send their cross state rivals home without a championship.
FAU had different plans.
With 10 hits the Lady Owls built a 5-0 lead after three innings and never looked back en route to a 7-0 victory.
Freel continued her dominance with a complete game two-hit shutout. The second shutout of the tournament for Freel sounds like something she would be excited about, but in an interview with Owl Radio she just said, “You’ve got to do, what you’ve got to do.”
The victory placed the Lady Owls in Saturday’s Championship game against the winner of the Stetson-UCF semifinal.
Thirty minutes after the semifinal game, FAU was set to take on UCF one last time and Freel would make her way to the mound again.
A normal pitcher would be felling tired but Freel shrugged off any pain and mowed down the Golden Knights with a three-hit shutout. Freel finished the tournament giving up 18 hits and only three runs.
The drama was saved until the bottom of the seventh. That’s when the Lady Owls loaded the bases on three hits and with two outs Jenn Piazza drew her second game winning RBI walk scoring Jessica Sachs.
FAU took the long rout to win its eighth consecutive A-Sun title, increasing its own record, but in the end the Lady’s advanced to their sixth straight NCAA tournament.
Freel’s performance earned her tournament MVP and a five day rest before she will be called upon to do it all again in the Regional. Freel’s performance was arguably the best single person pitching performance for a tournament weekend.
The Lady Owls are on the move and with Freel on the mound have a good chance of advancing far in the NCAAs. This article was written before the Regionals were announced but FAU more than likely will stay in-state and travel to Tallahassee for the first round.
