FROSTBURG, Md. - It all started so innocently.

Trailing 11-3 in the bottom of the fifth inning, the Frostburg State softball team needed to plate at least a single run to deny the Catholic Cardinals from invoking the mercy rule in game two of the teams' non-conference doubleheader Wednesday afternoon - and evening - at Bobcat Field.

Lead-off singles from sophomore Taylor Vandegrift (Westminster, Md./Winters Mill) and freshman Caitlin Lovend (Laurel, Md./Reservoir) set the table. After two outs, junior Beth Whitehead (Jessup, Md./Institute of Notre Dame) prolonged the game with a slicing single to right, barely evading the diving Mel Galella.

After Catholic again pushed the Bobcats to the brink with a run in the fifth to again lead by eight, 12-4, Frostburg cut even deeper into the lead. Senior Brooke Tapman (Pocomoke, Md./Pocomoke) led off with a single and a stolen base and scored on a Vandegrift double. Tapman was 4-for-5 with three stolen bases, while Vandegrift went 3-for-4 in the contest. Later in the inning, fellow senior Jacki Lynch (Glen Burnie, Md./North County) doubled in a pair and then scored on a Victoria Krichbaum (Olney, Md./Sherwood) single to cut the deficit to 12-8. Lynch was 3-for-4 with those two RBIs.

The fun was only beginning.

Catholic (20-13) added an insurance run in the top of the seventh to make it 13-8 before the Bobcats came to bat. No worries from the home dugout, though. Six runs, four hits, two walks and two pitching changes later, the Bobcats had an improbable 14-13 walk-off win.

The Cardinals would not record an out in the inning. Junior Jenna Delaney (Frostburg, Md./Mountain Ridge) led off with a walk. Consecutive singles from Tifnie Karopchinsky (Baltimore, Md./North County), Tapman, and Jordan Wright (East New Market, Md./North Dorchester/Chesapeake) plated a run to make it 13-9 and forced the second pitching change of the inning. Kerri Apicella earned the win in the first game of the doubleheader, but she wouldn't be so lucky in the nightcap. She walked Vandegrift to force in a run to make it 13-10.

The big blast came from Lovend, whose opposite-field shot ripped through the dusk and landed safely beyond the left-field fence to give the Bobcats (17-18) perhaps their most satisfying - and perhaps most surprising - victory of the season.

The Cardinals went about their business in defeating Frostburg, 5-3, in the opener and taking that eight-run lead into the bottom of the fifth of game two.

In the top of the sixth of the first game, Taylor Stockinger knocked home Melissa Rebechi to break a 3-3 tie. Catholic would add another insurance run to finalize the scoring and win, 5-3. Frostburg took a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the second inning when Lovend led off with a home run and the Bobcats scored two more unearned runs when a throwing error allowed Lynch and Krichbaum to come home.

Catholic tied the game in the fifth and took the lead with those two runs in the sixth.

Stockinger led the Cardinal offensive charge in game two. She homered in the three-run second inning, singled and scored in the six-run fourth, and again homered in the two-run fifth. When that half-inning was finished, it was 11-3 and the Bobcats needed a run just to keep the game alive.

Frostburg moves to the final doubleheader on its schedule, when it hosts Penn State Altoona on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.