The youthful University of Tennessee at Chattanooga softball team lost two 5-1 games in its first action of the 2017 season Friday, falling to Morgan State and Liberty in the NTC Tournament at Clermont, Fla.
The Mocs play the same teams again today and face Fairleigh Dickinson on Sunday morning.
UTC outhit Morgan State in the opener, 6-4, but also made three errors, and the winners scored their first two runs on throwing errors and their last one on Payten Price’s only wild pitch of the game. The freshman left-hander from Cookeville walked only two batters and struck out nine in her four-hitter but allowed a two-run home run by Audrianna Alvarez in the third.
Hayleigh Weissenbach scored an unearned run for UTC in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by senior Jesslyn Stockard. Amy Lewis was 2-for-3 in defeat against pitcher Amy Begg, a 6-foot-2 junior from New Zealand.
Liberty scored single runs in the fourth and fifth innings off UTC second-game starting pitcher Alex Connell and added a three-run sixth against her and fellow freshman Maddy Adams. Amber Bishop was 2-for-3 with an RBI single and Deidra See was 2-for-2 and stole home for the Flames.
Junior Ashley Conner got the Mocs on the scoreboard with a home run in the seventh, and she and Aly Walker each was 2-for-3. UTC loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the sixth but failed to score.