FARVMILLE, VA— Winthrop softball dropped its Big South Conference series at Longwood with losses of 1-0 and 8-5, Saturday afternoon at Lancer Field.

The Eagles fall to 12-28 overall and 2-9 in the Big South as it will not be back in action until Friday, Apr. 8 at home when it faces Coastal Carolina on ESPNU at 6:30 p.m. in game one of a three-game series. Longwood improves to 19-11 overall and 7-2 in the league.

"I thought our pitchers competed really well and felt they had a good day," said co-head coach Mark Cooke. "Keleigh (Romine) pitched a great first game. We competed both games like we're capable of competing against the top talent in our league. We're just working on getting better and I feel like we are. Going to take a couple of days off to try and get healthy and get ready for Coastal on Friday."

The first game of the day went to the Lancers in a pitching duel between Romine and Sydney Gay. Romine tossed six innings allowing one run on three hits with four walks and a strikeout to fall to 1-3 after making her fifth start of the season. Gay earned the win after tossing a three-hit shutout with two walks and nine strikeouts.

Winthrop's best chance to tie the game came in the top of the sixth. Morgan Lowers got the first hit of the day off Gay with one out and Shayna Covington followed with an infield single to put runners at first
and second. Zharne Glover stepped up and hit a soft fly ball to left that was caught by shortstop Emily Murphy in shallow left. Murphy immediately looked in and saw Lowers too far off the bag at second and threw to the bag to get the force out and double play to end the inning.

The lone run of the game came in the bottom of the fifth when Karleigh Donovan hit a solo home run to center to start the inning.

Winthrop had just one bad inning in the doubleheader which came in the second game and helped the Lancers to the 8-5 win. The Eagles pounded out 10 hits in the second game to get the five runs while the Lancers scored eight runs on eight hits.

Trailing 1-0 after two innings, Winthrop tied the game in the top of the third. . It started with Brooke Ellison leading off with a single and advancing to third when Paige Haley reached on an error at first base. Shayne Covington singled to short, scoring Ellison from third and tying the game. Young stepped up and hit a ball hard to first, but instead of tagging the base Jamie Barbour threw to third to get Haley out on the force out for the second out. The inning ended when Megan Winningham hit a grounder to second base and Glover was called for interference on her way to second base.

Longwood came right back to take the lead as it posted four runs in the bottom half of the third. Glenn Walters was hit on the first pitch and then moved to third on a double by Carly Adams. Murphy drove in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly to left field to plate Walters. Krista Kelly capped off the inning with a two-RBI single through the right side to make it 5-1.

A solo home run by Jamie Barbour in the fourth inning made it 6-1 before Winthrop cut the deficit in half in the top of the fifth. Young doubled with one out and moved to third on a groundout before scoring on a Glover single to third base. Glover then moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on a single up the middle by Chace Helms to make it just a three-run game. The inning ended two batters later with runners at first and second when Kiley Majette hit one that looked like it might find its way center field but the ball was snagged by Murphy on the run at short.

Longwood immediately got the two runs back in the bottom of the fifth on a two-run double by Kelsey Sweeney after two walks and a bunt single loaded the bases. That proved to be a key hit as Winthrop battled back to score two more runs in the seventh thanks to a two-RBI single by Romine with the bases loaded to cut the Longwood lead to three runs.

Majette took the loss in the circle after allowing five runs (three earned) on five hits with no walks and a strike out to fall to 6-11 on the year. Helms tossed 1.2 innings of relief while Romine finished throwing the final two innings.

In the second game all 10 hits for the Eagles came from 10 different players. Lowers and Covington had two hits on the day as Lowers extended her hitting streak to 11 straight games.