College of Charleston
Chattanooga
Softball Sweeps First-Place Chattanooga
4/16/2011 8:47:00 PM | Softball
MT. PLEASANT, S.C. - The College of Charleston softball team swept its Saturday afternoon Southern Conference doubleheader with SoCon-leading Chattanooga at Patriots Point. The Cougars marched to a 3-0 victory in the first game and carried the momentum to a 5-1 win in the second.
The teams will play the series conclusion on Sunday, April 17 at 1 p.m.
The wins improved CofC to 27-16 (7-9 SoCon) while the losses were Chattanooga's first in league play and drop them to 29-11 (11-2 SoCon).
Kelsey Hodgson (Woodstock, Ga.) homered in both games and had four RBIs on the day to plate what would be both games' winning runs.
Alexa Datko (San Diego, Calif.) and Stephanie Saylors (Easley, S.C.) each pitched complete games and earned wins in the pitching circle for the Cougars. Datko held the Lady Mocs to five hits and struck out seven in the opener and Saylors limited Chattanooga to six hits and struck out four in the second game.
The Cougars utilized timely hitting to produce offense with seven of their eight runs on the day coming with two outs.
GAME ONE: CofC: 3, Chattanooga: 0
Three early runs would prove to be enough for the Cougars as Datko shut down Chattanooga and kept the Lady Mocs off the scoreboard for only the fourth time this season.
In the first inning, Carly Corthell (Reno, Nev.) led off with a single and was moved up by a sacrifice before Hodgson cracked a two-out home run to deep center.
The Cougars followed it up with an insurance run in the second with a leadoff single by Katie Nutaitis (Vienna, Va.) and RBI single to right field by Corthell.
The insurance would ultimately not be needed as Chattanooga was unable to get a runner past second base in the game. The Lady Mocs threatened with a leadoff double in the third but a fine defensive effort by Kristi Woodall (Huntersville, N.C.) bailed CofC out of the jam. Woodall showed her range in centerfield to track down a ball hit over her left shoulder and was able to double up the runner at second who had left early assuming the ball was over Woodall's head.
After that third-inning play, Chattanooga would only reach three base runners for the remainder of the game.
GAME TWO: CofC: 5, Chattanooga: 1
The Lady Mocs were doomed by a lack of timely hitting and runners left on base in the second game and stranded two runners six different times.
In almost identical order to the first inning of the opening game, the Cougars took an early 2-0 lead by way of a Corthell single and Hodgson home run.
Chattanooga finally got on the scoreboard in the fourth with a pair of singles and a CofC fielding error cutting the Cougars' lead in half.
CofC distanced itself from the competition yet again in the fifth with singles from Woodall, Nutaitis, Hillary Stringer (Summerville, S.C.) and Lizzy Vaughn (Placerville, Calif.) resulting in two runs and a 4-1 CofC lead.
The Cougars would tack one more on in the sixth with a two-out RBI single for Nutaitis to push the score to 5-1, the eventual final.
