Jamie Prather felt she had Brianne Grommon figured out.

With Mesa State in position to break a 5-5 tie in the eighth inning of the second game against Western New Mexico, Prather stepped up to the plate with confidence.

“I hit well off (pitcher Brianne Grommon) in the first game,” Prather said. She was right. In the Mavericks’ 6-5 first-game loss, the junior from Lancaster, Calif., stroked three hits against Grommon.

Which put Prather in a calm mood despite the Mavericks needing a hit at that point.
Samantha Wyatt, who scored the walk-off run, opened the eighth with a walk and had advanced to third only to see the next two Mavericks hitters record outs.

Western New Mexico coach Scott Woodart set up the Prather-Grommon clash when he opted to intentionally walk Leslie Reed to load the bases.

It was a good move for Mesa. And for Prather, who whacked a Grommon pitch to right for the win.

“I just had to stay composed,” Prather said. “I was just looking for anything close the strike zone because I wasn’t going to be rung up. She brought, and I hit it.”

Prather’s big hit came off a talk Mesa State head coach had with the junior college transfer.

“Jaime’s been huge for us this year. But she’s had a little bit of a struggle, been in a slump the last couple of weekends. She wasn’t hitting the ball solid,” the coach said.

“I tried to remind her that she was a junior college All-American (At Antelope Valley JC) and that no matter how bad you hit today or bad you hit tomorrow — no one can take that away. You had to be a really great player to get that accolade and remember that.”

Prather’s dramatics were set in motion on a game-tying solo home run in the seventh by Katie Mitchell after the Mustangs took the lead in the top of the inning.

Freshman pitcher Kelsey McCoy put Mesa State in position for the comeback by holding the Mustangs to one run from the fourth inning on while the Maverick hitters went to work at chopping down Western New Mexico’s 4-2 third-inning lead.

“Kelsey pitched very well,” Mort said. “She’s been slow coming around because she was plagued with an injury early on. She was on complete hiatus. She couldn’t throw and she couldn’t run, and she kind of fell out of shape.”

McCoy was in top form Sunday.

She throw a scoreless inning in relief of Jessica Rayman in game one, then hurled all eight innings of the second game with five strikeouts.

Prather edged the twin-bill with five hits, which included her ninth double of the year. As a team the Mavericks pounded out 21 hits in the two games, three for home runs.