Saturday, February 21, 2009

Spartanburg, S.C. - Morgan Childers tossed her second career no-hitter and Crislyn Chewning delivered the key hit in the sixth inning, a two-run home run, as USC Upstate opened the flood gates late in the game to take a 7-0 victory over Presbyterian in the Campus Suites Spartan Classic at Cyrill Stadium Saturday afternoon.

Upstate improved to 4-0 on the year with the win. In other action on the day, College of Charleston opened the day with a 3-2 win over University of Maryland Baltimore County. Upstate claimed its win in the second game. Presbyterian rebounded to take a 2-1 win over College of Charleston in the third game of the day. The fourth game did not factor into the tournament results for seeding purposes, but Charleston took a 3-1 victory over UMBC.

Upstate is the only unbeaten team in the tournament with a 2-0 tourney record. Both College of Charleston and Presbyterian are 1-1, while UMBC is 0-2. Presbyterian battles UMBC Sunday at 11:00 a.m. and Upstate hosts College of Charleston in the A-Sun Game of the Week at 1:00 p.m. Following the 1:00 p.m. game, the teams will be seeded with the third-place game starting at 3:00 p.m. and the championship game played Sunday evening at 5:00.

Childers was dominant once again in the circle. She tossed a complete game, finishing with 12 strikeouts and allowing three walks to record the no-hitter. It marks the first no-hitter against a Division I team in the history of the Upstate program. Childers tossed a no-hitter to open the season last year against Division II Tusculum. She improved to 4-0 on the year. Gordon (0-3) took the loss for Presbyterian.

"Morgan was again a very dominant pitcher for us today and we got the hits when we needed them," said Upstate head coach Chris Hawkins. "I really felt like we were going to come up with the hits and we finally broke through in the fifth. Crislyn Chewning delivered for us today and I fully expect those kind of contributions to continue from her."

Neither team could figure out the other team's pitcher early on as Upstate's Morgan Childers and Presbyterian's Mary Gordon battled each other to a scoreless tie through four and a half innings. However, Heidi Gibbs turned in what was probably the key hit of the game, a single. She pounded a line drive back at Gordon and the ball deflected off Gordon's hand and leg for an infield single. The play got Gordon off balance and Chewning delivered with a two-run shot with the next at bat to give Upstate a 2-0 lead. Courtney Feldon scored on a wild pitch later in the inning to give Upstate a 3-0 lead.

The Spartans added four runs to the lead in the sixth inning, three of which were unearned. Chewning drove in a pair of runs on a double down the left field line to pick up the key hit in the inning. She finished the game 2-for-4 with four RBIs. Katelyn Molkenthin and Ana Mitchell also picked up RBIs in the inning.