Heartbreaker: Eagles drop NJCAA tourney opener to San Jacinto

ST. GEORGE, Utah (May 14, 2014) – Tallahassee Community College's softball team has another daunting task staring them in the face. 

The No. 3 seed Eagles dropped a 1-0 decision to 14-seed San Jacinto (Texas) College-South on Wednesday evening in opening round play at the NJCAA Division I Softball National Championship. 

Tallahassee falls into the loser's bracket and will play 11-seed Seminole (Okla.) State College at 4:30 p.m. eastern Thursday in an elimination game. 

Two weeks ago, the Eagles won six straight elimination games to capture the NJCAA Region 8B/FCSAA Gulf District championship. It'll take eight straight victories for Tallahassee to come home with a national championship. 

Down to its final three outs, Tallahassee appeared poised to deliver some of its patented late-inning magic. Singles by Brenda Santana, Brianna Murillo and Karley Yeager loaded the bases with nobody out, but the Eagles couldn't get the ball out of the infield again. A fielder's choice retired pinch runner Dominique Davis at the plate on a bang-bang play for the second out of the inning, and that was as close as Tallahassee got to tying the game. 

Both teams had opportunities in their first at-bat, but only San Jacinto capitalized. 

After the Coyotes put their first two runners on, Tallahassee's Ashley Dobson recorded back-to-back strikeouts. But San Jacinto began to put its runners in motion and eventually took advantage of an errant throw by Murillo to plate a run and grab a 1-0 lead. 

Tallahassee put its first two runners on in the bottom half but the rally fizzled with a pop up to second and a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning. 

The Eagles had another scoring opportunity in the sixth when Ashely Heath-Smith doubled off the right field wall with one out, but consecutive fly outs ended the inning. 

Dobson took the tough-luck loss for Tallahassee.