GALLATIN, TENNESSEE - The Villages Vixens made it three National SPA Women’s titles in a row but it didn’t get any easier as they needed some late inning heroics to keep the streak intact.

Trailing 4-2 with two out in the sixth inning against the Golden Gals in the third game of best two-out-of-three finals, the Vixens came up with the big hit. Karen Clausen’s two-out single scored both Tiny Cazel and Linda Landry to tie the game at 4-4.

In the seventh it was tournament MVP Aileen Laing who supplied the key hit plating Terri Skinner from third with two-out for the eventual game winner and a 5-4 lead.

Laing wasn’t finished because in the bottom of the seventh she was the middle player in a rally-killing 4-3-5 double play to choke off the Golden Gals’ hopes.

With a runner on first the Golden Gals batter hit a grounder to Vixen second baseman Wendy Neff, who threw out the batter. The runner tried to make it to third but first baseman Laing fired a dart to Bev Morgan, who slapped the tag to complete the double play.

The next batter grounded out to end the game.

“Those plays were the difference between winning and losing,” Vixen’s coach and SPA women’s 65 Major Manager-of-the-Year Alan Mahar said, “To win championships you need to have a lot of luck and be able to make the defensive plays and have the two-out hits.”

The Villages Vixens must have had a lot of luck this year because the championships continue to pile up. With 2011 championships at Gallatin, Pensacola, Columbus, Huntsman and a second at Fort Myers, the gold medal count has climbed over 20.

Not bad for team which has only been around for three years.

“You need a solid team effort in each and every game and every tournament to accomplish that,” Mahar said, “The biggest difference between us and other teams is we have hitters from the first spot in the batting order to the twelfth spot. We do not have any easy outs in our batting order.”

“Every team has at least five-or-six good hitters,” Mahar continued, “but what decides who wins and who loses is usually determined by the bottom six batters in the order and our bottom six are as good as a lot of team’s top six”.

“Because of that our girls have a lot of confidence in each other,” he continued, “They do not feel that additional pressure of one-or-two people having to deliver because they know there is somebody always there to pick the team up.”

Because of the team balance, everybody on the Villages Vixen roster plays.

“They may not play every game in the tournament but they will all play a few games,” the manager said.

Laing had an outstanding tournament for the Vixens hitting .824 with an on-base percentage of .842 to go along with a team high 14 hits. Joining Laing as tournament All-Americans were Lee Dragon (.643 BA, .722 OBP, 9 hits); Karen Clausen (.600 BA, .692 OBP); Terri Skinner (.500 BA, .600 OBP); Brenda John (.526 BA, .550 OBP,10hits,9 runs, 7 RBI’s) and Jeanne Harrington (.722 BA,.750 OBP, 13 hits, 10 runs, 8 RBI’s).

Other members of the Villages Vixens are Dar Huntsinger (,235 BA, .409 OBP); Deanna Rhea (.455, .538); Wendy Neff (.667 BA, .692 OBP); Tiny Cazel (.500, .529(; Virginia Roward (.615 BA, .615 OBP); Bev Morgan (.400 BA,.400 OBP); Linda Landry (.667 BA, .688 OBP, 10 hits, 7 RBI’s); Karen Adams (.533 BA, .611 OBP, 10 RBI’s),Bobbi Crocker (.182, .308) and assistant coach Fred Greenlee.

Mahar also spoke highly of the Golden Gals, the team they have beaten the last two years in the deciding third game for the SPA National title.

“The Golden Gals are our neighbors, we are both from the Villages,’ he explained, “They are a very talented team and in the majority of the tournaments it always seems to come down to us playing each other for a championship. That shows the type of talent we have here in the Villages, I think we (the Villages) have two of the best women’s senior softball teams in the country.”