CONWAY, SC— Radford jumped out to a 5-0 lead after three innings and Winthrop could never recover as it fell 8-3 in game eight of the 2010 Big South Conference Softball Championship presented by Musco Sports Lighting at Coastal Carolina Softball Field on Friday.
The loss means Winthrop falls to the 10 a.m. game on Saturday and will have to win three games to capture the championship. The Lady Eagles will face the number two seed Liberty Flames..
“We made a couple of mistakes swinging and also gave them a couple of runs but we hit the ball solid and put runners on a base against a pitcher that has shut us down in the past. I thought AJ came in and threw a very good ball game which allowed us to rest our pitchers for tomorrow.”
Radford took a 3-0 lead with two outs In the bottom of the second inning as Kristen Shifflett hit a 2-2 pitch over the left field fence off Megan Evans.
In the third inning the Highlanders made it 5-0 as Winthrop head coach Mark Cooke made a pitching change and Ashleigh Jackson moved from right field to the circle. After Shannon Keefe walked to lead-off the inning, she moved to second on a Michelle Beall single. Taylor Cunningham then singled to score Keefe and the score increased to 5-0 after a sacrifice fly by Meredith Moore.
Winthrop answered in the top of the fourth with Ashlee Revell starting things off with a one out single down the right field line. Kelly Blea followed with a single through the left side and Veronica Berrie drove in the first run of the game for Winthrop with a single to right. With runners at first and third, Cooke called for the double steal and after the throw went to second base, Blea took off from third and scored to make it a 5-2 game.
An error by Teja Durante on a throw to third allowed Shifflett to score as she was heading to third base and went home on the errant throw.
Jackson led off the seventh with a triple down the right field line for Winthrop. Veronica Berrie was robbed of a base hit as Chelsea Kelley stopped a line drive that popped straight up and she hauled it in. With two outs, Megan Chapman singled to right to make it 8-3.
Kelley earned the win and improved to 23-7 on the year while Megan Evans suffered the loss and falls to 10-9.
Lauren Levin extended her hitting streak to seven games while Ashlee Revell extended hers to six games. Both hitting streaks are career-highs.