Monday, April 28, 2008

Belmont
* The Belmont softball team (14-36, 3-19 A-Sun) wrapped up regular season play last week at home with a non-conference doubleheader with regional rival Western Kentucky. Despite valiant comebacks in both games, the Bruins fell 12-2 and 10-3 to the Hilltoppers.

* Senior Jes McMillian (Broken Arrow, Okla.) led Belmont’s offensive effort batting .667 after going 4-for-6. Classmate Meghan Pipkin (Alameda, Calif.) went 3-for-8 with two runs and one RBI, batting .375. Pipkin also notched two steals, bringing her career total to 95.

* Inside the circle, senior Heather Grossnickle (La Crescenta, Calif.) and junior Sammi Parks tossed a combined 11.1 innings and finished with four strikeouts.

* The Bruins finish their 2008 campaign with a 3-19 mark in Atlantic Sun play and a 14-36 record overall.

Campbell
* Sophomore hurler Brittany Stanley tossed just the third perfect game in Campbell history, leading the Camels to a 2-0 win over Gardner-Webb in Atlantic Sun softball action Friday night at the Eakes Complex.

* Stanley (20-8), a native of West Lafayette, Ind., pitched the first perfect game of her career, with the last unblemished performance by a CU pitcher coming on April 11, 2005, when Lauren Caviness blanked Appalachian State. The second year Camel also became the third pitcher in Campbell history to reach 20 wins, with Andrea Nardolillo (1993) and Christine Hornak (1994, '95) accomplishing the feat previously. Stanley helped the Camels to a sweep of East Carolina as well, their first in over 10 years. The pitcher also helped her own cause at the plate, hitting .500 (4-8) on the week, with two RBI and a pair of doubles.

* Senior outfielder Courtney Quinn did her part as well, helping assure a No. 5 seed in the Atlantic Sun Tournament. Quinn, a Glencoe, Ala. native, hit .500 on the week, while slugging two homers with 4 RBI. The senior also broke the CU single season walks record, drawing six free passes to reach 37 on the year.

* The Camels have one more date on their calendars before heading to DeLand, Fla., facing North Florida on Saturday, May 3, in a rescheduled match up from nearly three weeks ago

East Tennessee State
* The Lady Bucs finished the final week of regular-season by winning four of their last seven games. ETSU swept Western Carolina in its home finale and split conference doubleheaders with Mercer and Kennesaw State.

* ETSU finished the regular season with a mark of 28-31, 10-12 in Atlantic Sun play - resulting in the No. 4 seed in next month's conference tournament. The Softball Bucs will face Mercer in their first game of the tournament and the winner of that match-up will get the winner of Stetson/Campbell. The loser of ETSU/Mercer squares off against the victor of top-seeded Lipscomb or sixth-seeded Gardner-Webb.

* The Softball Bucs are two victories away of setting a new single-season wins mark and three stolen bases shy of breaking the school record of 93 - which was set in 2005.

* Vicki McCoy enters the tournament on a hot streak as she is riding a season-high seven-game hit streak into DeLand, Fla. The junior outfielder finished the week with a .435 average (10-for-23) with three runs scored, three RBI and four stolen bases. Sophomore right-hander Marissa Hardy also brings a winning attitude into the double-elimination tourney as she is 6-2 with a 1.59 ERA (13 ER/57.1 IP) in her last 10 appearances versus conference foes. The Rocklin, Calif. native has held the opposition to a .146 average (28-for-192) and recorded 73 strikeouts during this impressive run.

Florida Gulf Coast 
* No notes provided.

Gardner-Webb
The Gardner-Webb softball team dropped three of four A-Sun games this week

* The lone win was a nine-inning victory at Campbell

* GWU has completed its A-Sun slate and has secured the No. 6 seed in the tournament

* The Bulldogs will play just two games this week - at future Big South foe Liberty on Tuesday.

Jacksonville
* No notes provided.

Kennesaw State
* No notes provided

Lipscomb
* The Lady Bisons swept Tennessee State on Tuesday in their only games of the week. Senior outfielder Sara Simons went two for three at the plate with 2 RBI's to lead the Lady Bisons to the 4-3 game one win.

* Senior Kim Jacobson turned in her best performance of the season in game two recording a two hit shutout, her third of the season and her seventh straight win in the Lady Bisons 2-0 victory.

* The Lady Bisons are 29-22 on the season and 16-6 in the Atlantic Sun. They conclude their regular season with a doubleheader against Western Kentucky at 5 p.m. CST on Wednesday at draper Diamond.

Mercer
* The Bears finished their regular season with a 1-5 week, dropping doubleheaders to Georgia and USC Upstate while splitting with ETSU. Two of the Bears losses for the week were one-run losses, both in extra innings.

* Against Georgia, Mercer led through the first six innings, 1-0, until the Bulldogs tied things up in the bottom of the seventh. The Bears plated a run in the seventh, but UGA fought to score two runs and take a 3-2 win. In the game versus Upstate, Mercer led 3-1 heading into the bottom of the seventh and rallied to even the score at three apiece. Each team was scoreless in the eighth, pushing it to a nine-inning game. The Spartans pushed a run across in the top of the ninth and the Bears were unable to respond, falling 4-3.

* Senior Jamie Madruga had three home runs during the weekend, one in each game against ETSU and one in the second game against Upstate. Her total moves to 12 long balls on the season, tying her for fifth place in the Mercer single-season record books.

* The Bears have the next week off before heading to the A-Sun Championships in DeLand, Fla., May 8-10.

UNF
* No notes provided.

USC Upstate
* Upstate wrapped up its first season as a member of NCAA Division I and the Atlantic Sun Conference with a sweep of A-Sun foe Mercer Sunday in Macon. The sweep capped a 4-2 week for the Spartans after splitting non-conference doubleheaders at Furman and Presbyterian.

* In finishing 16-6 in the A-Sun, Upstate clinched at leas a share of second place with Lipscomb and can earn a share of the conference championship if Stetson sweeps Florida Gulf Coast Tuesday.

* Morgan Childers won her A-Sun best 27th game Sunday, earning both victories against Mercer. She finished the season with a school record 27 wins and 258 strikeouts.

* Shay Slater wrapped up her stellar four-year career with six career records – runs, stolen bases, at bats, sacrifice flies, games played and games started.

* Tiffany Pitcher ended her four-year career as Upstate’s all-time leader with 34 sacrifice bunts and a .991 fielding percentage.

Stetson 
* Stetson went 1-2 in non-conference road games against a pair of teams nearing the top 25 in the national polls. The Hatters split a doubleheader at #28 USF on Wednesday (L 6-5 in nine innings, W 8-0 in six innings) before falling 8-0 at 33rd-ranked UCF on Sunday.

* Junior first baseman Andrea Migliori smacked three home runs in the USF doubleheader to break her own Stetson season records for homers and RBI. She has 19 longballs and has driven in 61 runs in 2008. Her final home run Wednesday evening was her 186th career hit, which vaulted her into third place in Stetson program history.

* Stetson's last nine victories have all been via the shutout. Overall, 21 of the team's 38 victories have been shutouts, a total which is just two shy of the season record set by the Hatters in 2006.