Her last throw of the season came in frustration. Catawba lost by the slimmest of margins Wednesday in the play-in game of the South Atlantic Conference softball tournament. Gardner-Webb advanced with a 3-2 win. The No. 9 seed Lady Indians were done for the year.

“Two close or questionable calls in the 10th inning made the difference,”Catawba head coach Nan Whitley said.

A game of missed opportunities on both sides turned into a game of inches in the final frame. In the top half, Catawba’s Heather Shook appeared to score on a wild pitch in the dirt. But the home plate umpire ruled that Stacy Brunell had foul tipped the ball when she took a swing at the low ball, not that it had hit the plate and bounded away, as the Indians believed.

The Indians still batted with the bases loaded and no outs, but three infield grounders ended the threat and gave the eighth-seeded Lady Bulldogs a shot to win in the bottom half.

As per softball’s extra-inning rules, a runner trotted out to second base. Sophomore Jennifer Archer raced to third on an infield grounder as Pittman tried to pitch the Lady Indians out of another jam.

Leadoff batter Allyson Broxton gave Catawba just what it wanted — a sharp grounder back to the pitcher. Pittman pounced on it and threw home, but by the time Missy Alcott applied the tag, Archer’s foot had slipped over the plate for the winning run.

Gardner-Webb’s players streamed out of the dugout to celebrate. Pittman ran toward the umpire to argue, then dejectedly sent her glove flying.

“She was definitely in,”Lady Bulldogs head coach Debbie Raysin said. “She was already down before the tag. I shot up as soon as she went down because I knew.”

The bitter loss, which ended Catawba’s season at 13-30-1, left the Indians wondering what might have been.

“My problem was that it wasn’t a foul ball. She never touched it,”said Whitley, referring to the run her team didn’t score instead of the one G-W did. “We score a run there and everything changes. Of course, we didn’t get the ball out of the infield.”

Lady Bulldog freshman Susan Frank got the win despite allowing single runs in the eighth and ninth inning. She followed junior Caley Parker, who left with a scoreless tie after the seventh with six hits and five strikeouts.

Pittman and Parker matched each other inning by inning. Catawba got one runner on in each of the second through fifth innings but stranded all of them. Pittman got into trouble in the first inning, leaving the bases loaded, but cruised from there. She finished with 13 Ks.

Catawba scored the first run in the eighth when freshman Val McDowell started from second, took third on Brunell’s sacrifice bunt and scored on a wild pitch. Gardner-Webb countered with an unearned run in the bottom half, then a stolen base and throwing error gave the Lady Indians the lead again in the ninth before Gardner-Webb forged a 2-all tie with an infield groundout.

Then came the disastrous 10th — three runners left on in the top half, and one home, just barely, in the bottom half.