Double dose of pitching helps lady sluggers to wins

By RYAN HOCKENSMITH
Collegian Staff Writer

The workhorses did the work once again yesterday for the Penn State softball team.

Iron women Tanis Ambelang and Jaci Kalp, responsible for 11 complete games and 126 innings pitched before yesterday's games, again handled the load. Each fired complete-game victories against visiting Ohio in a doubleheader at Lady Lion Field, helping Penn State improve to 15-11 this season.

Ambelang pitched the entire first game, holding the Bobcats to four hits and striking out seven batters as Penn State won its home opener, 6-0.

"It was a good performance," Ambelang said. "I don't know if it was one of my best games, but it was good."

Good may be an understatement.

The sophomore Lions hurler allowed only one runner to reach third, and just two Bobcats made the trip to second base. Ambelang, now 7-5 on the season, retired eight straight at one point and 12 of the last 15 hitters she faced. Fittingly, the final out of the game came on the last Ambelang whiff of the night.

Kalp followed Ambelang's example, allowing only an unearned run in the second game en route to a 2-1 Penn State victory.

After three of the first five Bobcat hitters reached base, Kalp was forced to bear down.

"That was a rough start," Kalp said of the opening stanza. "That was just one bad inning, though."

No more bad innings followed.

Ohio punched home one unearned run in the third, but that was it for the Bobcats. Kalp struck out five and walked one to push her record to 6-5 this season. The Lions junior retired the last 13 batters she faced to move into seventh place on Penn State's all-time wins list with 24.

In her last outing, Kalp had surrendered six runs, five earned, to suffer a 6-3 loss to Marshall at Virginia's Hoo's Who Invitational last weekend.

Penn State coach Robin Petrini said Kalp rebounded well from the defeat.

"A good outing for Jaci," Petrini said. "That last one wasn't her best performance, but she came back well today."

With the shutout, Ambelang lowered her team-leading ERA to 1.82 this season, while Kalp dropped hers from 2.77 to 2.45 in 1999.

Assistant coach Kelly Kovach, a two-time Big Ten Pitcher of the Year when playing at Michigan, said a major factor in both hurlers' success has been pitch placement.

"They've both been working real hard to keep the ball down," Kovach said. "Tonight they did it well and it shows on their records."

Both pitchers will likely be called upon again this weekend when visiting Iowa enters Happy Valley. The Hawkeyes, 22-9 this season, carry a 23-2 all-time record against Penn State into the 1 p.m. doubleheader Saturday. The three-game weekend concludes at noon on Sunday.