CCU

#4 Softball Drops Big South Opener to #5 Birmingham-Southern, 3-1

       

#4 Softball Drops Big South Opener to #5 Birmingham-Southern, 3-1

More Information:    

The fifth-seeded Birmingham-Southern softball team scored an upset Thursday night in defeating fourth-seeded Coastal Carolina, 3-1, in the first round of the 2005 Big South Conference Softball Championships, hosted by Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. BSC moves to 25-30 with the win and Coastal drops to 22-24.

Coastal went up first in the bottom of the first inning, with Delane Grainger leading off with a single through the left side. Sara Hostetler followed up with a sacrifice bunt to move Grainger to second, and Allison Cantrell grounded out to allow Grainger to advance to third. Meagen Johnson then singled to center field to bring Grainger across the plate to put the Lady Chanticleers up, 1-0.

The Panthers answered back in the top of the third, leading off with a double to right center from Dawn Treadwell. Lacey Barth then reached on a CCU fielding error, advancing Treadwell to third, and stole second. After a BSC strikeout to put one out on the board, Kerri Owens hit a sacrifice fly to left field, bringing Treadwell across the plate for the 1-1 tie. Barth advanced to third on the play and scored on another Coastal error to put BSC up, 2-1.

BSC tagged on another run in the top of the seventh after Nikki Rombough walked and Jennifer Wellborn doubled down the left field line to put runners on second and third. Tifani Talbert then singled to bring Rombough across the plate for the 3-1 lead and eventual win.

Kristina Villavicencio pitched all seven innings for BSC, giving up four hits and one earned run with four strikeouts. She moves to 17-14 on the season. For Coastal, Danyelle Gerdts started and threw six innings, allowing four hits and two earned runs while striking out five Panthers to drop to 2-7. Trish Kretchman came in for one inning of relief, facing three batters.

BSC advances to take on No. 1 Winthrop tonight at 7 p.m., and Coastal drops into the losers’ bracket to take on the loser of the game between No. 2 Radford and No. 3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, which takes place tonight at 7 p.m.

___

CCU Head Coach Jess Dannelly:
“We had a good pitching performance. If we do what we’re supposed to do in the field, Birmingham-Southern doesn’t score runs. Our pitchers came out and did a good job, but we didn’t play good defense and didn’t hit well, so now we’re in the losers’ bracket and have to deal with it.”

BSC Head Coach Tyra Perry:
“It was a hard fought game and our kids played well and did everything they needed to do to win. We’ve been working on capitalizing on situations when we have the lead going into the seventh, and it paid off. Coastal played very well, they’re a hard team to beat. Hopefully we can stay focused and continue to play well.”