On paper, RLC - 14-28 and 11-15 in the Great Rivers Athletic Conference - looks to have its work cut out for itself after losing to OCC on all four occasions this season. The Lake will have to sweep tomorrow or split two wins Friday and Saturday in a best-of-three series in order to get through OCC to the Final Four, May 2 and 3, at RLC, where the winner will advance to the NJCAA National Championship Tournament, May 14-16, in St. George, Utah.

Rend Lake, a five-seed at 11-15 in the league, will take on #4 OCC (14-14) while #1 Lake Land (27-1) hosts #8 Kaskaskia College (7-18), #2 Wabash Valley (22-3) hosts #7 Southwestern Illinois (7-12), and #3 John A. Logan (15-8) hosts #6 Lincoln Trail (9-15).

Lady Warrior losses to OCC's Lady Blue Knights were 7-3 and 6-5 (9 innings) on March 30 and 8-5, 16-6 (5 innings) April 14. The issue in three of those four, as in most of RLC's 28 regular season losses, has been offense, according to The Lake's longtime head coach Dave Ellingsworth.

"We haven't scored runs," he said. "In many cases we have out-hit our opponents, but we haven't been able to drive in runs. In the second doubleheader of our series with OCC, we had some injuries that hurt us offensively. When we go up there Friday, if we score runs we can take the pressure off of our pitchers. I think that if we do that we will compete with them and that will give us a chance to win. You are just trying to get two out of three here. You have to win one on Friday."

In their past five games - a streak of wins over SWIC and Southeastern Illinois College - RLC has driven in the runs when they needed to. Leading that charge have been freshmen Jackie Kurwicki and Katie Wojtowicz, a couple of Nashville (Ill.) natives who have turned things up a notch with their bats. Over the past three games, Kurwicki is batting .556 and Wojtowicz is hitting .545. Other notable three-game averages are freshman Rachel Mulvey (Evansville, Ind.) with a .444 and freshman Tosha Ellis (Mt. Vernon) at .400.

Lake Land and Wabash Valley finished strong seasons as the top two teams in the tournament with league records of 27-1 and 22-3, respectively. If RLC advances past OCC tomorrow, they will most likely be looking at a Final Four appearance against one of those two teams.

Sophomore leader Shannon Harre, also of Nashville, finished the regular season with the team's top batting average from hitters with more than 50 at-bats. Harre hit .367 this year in 42 games and 128 at-bats with a team-high 47 hits - 39 singles, five doubles and a team-high three triples. She also leads the team with an on-base percentage of 421.

Kurwicki hit .308 this year and led the team in home runs with three. Behind Kurwicki, sophomore Jaylyn Jones has the biggest batting average surge over the past three games. Jones (Tolono), who hit .250 this year, is batting .375 over the last three. She is also second on the team in being hit by pitches with three, just behind Ellis with five.

Harre hit the most triples and singles this year while freshman Ashtyn Krough (Carbondale) led the team in doubles with 14 and Mulvey drove in the most runs with 18 RBI. Krough had 17 and sophomore catcher Kayla Raderstorf (Brazil, Ind.) had 16.

As a team, RLC hit .277 over the fall and spring, scoring 142 runs - 123 driven in by hits - with 312 hits and 138 strikeouts in 1,125 at-bats. They hit 239 singles, 57 doubles, 10 triples and six home runs.

RLC pitchers Carly Clark-Stokes (Carbondale), Malori Loker (Vienna), Mulvey and Courtney Walter (Chaffee, Mo.) combined for a team ERA of 3.85. Out of 263-1/3 innings pitched this year, Clark-Stokes and Loker threw 231-1/3 of them. Loker struck out 65 and walked 41 out of 593 batters, allowing 130 hits and giving up 55 earned runs for an ERA of 2.94.

Clark-Stokes finished her freshman regular season with an ERA of 3.42 through 504 batters in 100-1/3 innings. She struck out 25 and walked 26 in 23 outings. She gave up 132 hits and 49 earned runs - 81 total. Of the 215 total runs scored on RLC this year, 145 were earned.

"We are going to go in well-prepared," Ellingsworth said about their game in Olney. "We are going over pitching charts. They have an excellent hitting team and a great outfield. You have to hit line drives and they have good arms."

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