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ROCK HILL, SC— Mel Andrea's solo home run in the fourth inning with two outs lifted Winthrop to a 2-1 victory over Gardner-Webb, Wednesday evening in Big South Conference softball action at Terry Field.
The victory improves to the Eagles to 22-19 on the year and 10-8 in the league as they sweep the regular season series with Gardner-Webb, who falls to 11-29 overall and 1-11 in the Big South.
It wasn't just the Andrea home run that gave the Eagles the victory as they made some key defensive plays to keep Gardner-Webb to just a single run in the game.
The Runnin' Bulldogs threatened to tie the game and possibly take the lead in the top of the seventh inning with one out after back-to-back singles. Winthrop starter
Sara Allen got the grounder she needed with the next batter as the ball rolled to third base and was collected by
Kelsey Ritter. Ritter turned to throw the ball to Stevens running to cover third for the force out, but the throw was behind her and the bases were loaded. Winthrop head coach
Mark Cooke made a pitching change to
Sutton Watson, who struck out the final two batters to secure the win and her first career save.
"That's an example of winning ugly," said Cooke. "We threw the ball away. We'd recover and get an out. In the seventh inning they get the bases loaded and Sutton comes in and gets two strikeouts. That's they kind of team we have. Everybody finds their role and handles it. I thought our team played up to what I team is capable of when we weren't throwing the ball away. We had some great long foul balls, hit the ball hard. It's one of those days where you don't get the hits but you get the win and we'll take it. Gardner-Webb had a great game plan and their pitcher threw a terrific game tonight. It was a great competitive conference matchup."
In the sixth inning, Megan Gibbons led off with a single to third and then Jessica Childers reached on a bunt single trying to sacrifice Gibbons to second. The bunt was fielded and a throw was made to first but Childers beat the throw. Gibbons moved to second and then tried to stretch it to third after the throw to first base got away. However,
Megan Winningham was right in position to back up the play and threw a strike to third base to easily get Gibbons at third for the out.
Gardner-Webb took the lead in the top of the first as Samanthan Meenaghan led off with an infield single to short. After being sacrificed to second, Meenaghan scored on a single to left center by Megan Champion. The Runnin' Bulldogs threatened to add more runs as they loaded the bases, but
Sara Allen struck out Scarlett Harris to end the inning.
It didn't take long for Winthrop to strike back as
Naomi Stevens led off the bottom of the first with a triple to left center. Stevens launched a high fly ball that looked like it may get caught but as Meenaghan approached the ball in left center it looked as if she lost it in the sun as she reached out for it. The ball fell at the base of the wall and Stevens hustled around to third. That brought up Winningham, who was able to drive in with a fly ball to left field for a sacrifice fly.
Allen improved to 9-9 on the year as she scattered nine hits allowing one run with no walks and five strikeouts in 6.1 innings. Watson struck out the only two batters she faced for the save.
Childers tossed a complete game in the loss as she falls to 7-16 on the year after allowing two runs on three hits with a walk and five strikeouts.
McKenzi Corn had a hitting streak come to an end at five games but extended her streak of reaching base to nine games after drawing a walk in her final at-bat. Andrea finished with two of the Eagles three hits in the game.
Winthrop will be off for the next five days as it will be back in action on Tuesday, Apri. 15 when it travels to Columbia, SC for a single-game against South Carolina at 6 p.m.
