ROCK HILL, SC—The Winthrop softball team hosts Charleston Southern in a key three-game series on Sunday and Monday as both teams fight for positioning toward the upper half of the Big South Conference regular season standings.
Winthrop dropped its game to Presbyterian College Friday night and fell to 4-7 in the Big South and now tied with the Buccaneers in league wins and trail PC and Radford in wins by two. Winthrop has won two of the last three games and five of the last eight games and is now 14-25 overall on the year. Charleston Southern enters the weekend with an overall record of 17-27 having lost five games in a row and six of the last seven. The Bucs are 4-5 in the Big South and have six more league contests after facing the Eagles.
The double-header will be featured as the save “2nd Base” breast cancer awareness games as donations will be accepted during both games. All proceeds will be donated to the American Cancer Society. The day will also include the senior recognition for all five Eagle seniors prior to the start of the 1 p.m. game.
A series sweep would put the Eagles at 7-7 in the conference give them a chance to finish second or third in the conference, but that will be a tough task against a Charleston Southern team that has defeated the Eagles in four of the last five meetings, including an 11-4 victory on Feb. 12, 2011 at the Palmetto State Showdown.
Winthrop's offense, despite just two runs on Friday, has continued to improve as of late. In the loss to PC on Friday the Eagles got base runners, but ended up stranding a total of eight with six hits off one of the nation's top pitchers statistically.
Chelsey Schoenfeldt hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to extend her career-best hit streak to 13 games. The sophomore is batting .590 over the course of the hitting streak and has 12 runs, six doubles, five home runs and 19 RBI. The team is hitting .325 with an average of 5.3 runs per game and 30 extra-base hits. Winthrop as a team had 37 total extra-base hits in the 26 games prior.
Junior Megan Chapman is hitting .378 in the 13-game stretch and Brittany Stoudemire is hitting .333 with eight RBI.
Schoenfeldt has also thrown well in her last two starts having a 1-1 record with a 3.27 ERA. All four of her walks came in the loss to PC in extra innings.
Charleston Southern is led by junior shortstop Megan Lombard and sophomore third baseman Jessica Brock. Lombard has a team-best .317 average with 24 runs, 11 doubles, six home runs and 26 RBI. Brock is batting .313 with 12 runs, three doubles, three homers and 26 RBI. Senior Erin Kegley is not only a solid catcher, but is hitting .278 with six doubles, five home runs and 22 RBI.
Winthrop will likely see both Charleston Southern pitchers in sophomore Morgan Dowdy and senior Kimberly Hobbs. Dowdy earned the win over the Eagles earlier this season with a complete game allowing four runs (two earned) on six hits with no walks and four strikeouts. Dowdy is 7-16 on the year with a 3.10 ERA and 101 strikeouts to 60 walks. Hobbs is 10-11 on the year with a 5.28 ERA and 94 strikeouts to 36 walks.
