Longwood opened Sunday’s game with six runs in two innings, shutting out the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs for four consecutive innings after allowing an early run, ultimately carrying them to a 9-2 win.
The game completed the second conference sweep of the season, following a double-header on Saturday.
“A sweep is really important, just in a sense of building that confidence and trust in each other and that’s what we’re after right now,” said softball Head Coach Kathy Riley.
Five different Lancers scored runs during Sunday’s game; senior Megan Baltzell and sophomore utility Justina Augustine earned three runs each.
“I’m just glad we won the series, that’s our main goal. Just get three wins and just keep on progressing for our championship season,” said Baltzell.
Baltzell continued to compete for holding the new Big South career home run record as she tied Coastal Carolina senior third baseman Kory Hayden again with another home run, totaling 59 in the Big South. The sixth inning home run (two RBI) picked up the pace for Longwood, after going an inning without a run.
“I did ask (Megan Baltzell) before we got up to, ‘hey let’s start picking the pace up a little bit. See if we can hit some balls, square up to some,’ I said, ‘because it seems that we lost a bit of that momentum,’” said Riley. “So she actually went up there with the thought process of let’s get some things going so it was really nice to see her come through in that situation.”
Baltzell currently ranks No. 3 nationally with 19 home runs this season.
Alongside Baltzell, Augustine hit two home runs of her own this weekend and finished with six RBI,same as the senior,and a .305 batting average.
“If you really talk about development, (Augustine’s) development in the last three weeks has just been tremendous, and so if you put all that together then I’m really happy with what she’s doing,” said Riley. “She’s not only committed to her game in her spare time, but she comes out and give us an effort every day at practice and really has a sense about her to really care about her teammates and the game.”
This was Augustine’s second-straight conference series scoring a pair of home runs.
“I’ve been putting in a little extra work, I’m glad to see it pay off, but I’m just glad that as a team we could pull out the win,” said Augustine.
Sophomore pitcher Elizabeth McCarthy threw 12 strikeouts over the weekend and one complete game. Fellow sophomore pitcher Jenna Carnes threw a season-high of two strikeouts to close Sunday during three innings on the mound.
“(McCarthy) has definitely been hitting her spots, doing what she’s supposed to do. She just needs to keep on throwing them and let her defense work for her,” said Baltzell.
Longwood will travel to Charlottesville, Virginia to play the University of Virginia Cavaliers tonight, then visit Norfolk State University tomorrow to play the Spartans; both games begin at 5 pm.
“The key for us will be to just score runs ourselves. I think if we score runs ourselves we’ll be in the ball game,” said Riley. “Our primary focus each day is each player getting better collectively as we get towards the conference tournament so we really feel like a stronger club. It’s just keeping our foot on the gas pedal, making sure we’re getting better.”
Longwood currently holds the No. 2 spot in Big South standings, two conference wins behind No. 1 Coastal Carolina University with four conference games until the Big South tournament.
