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.
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.
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.