College of Charleston
No. 6 UNC Greensboro
Shutdown Performance by Datko Lands Softball in SoCon Championships
5/14/2011 5:09:00 PM | Softball
STATESBORO, Ga. - The College of Charleston softball team rallied behind a complete-game shutout dealt by Alexa Datko to down UNC Greensboro, 2-0, and advance to the championship game of the Southern Conference Softball Championship at Eagle Field on the campus of Georgia Southern on Saturday afternoon.
The Cougars will see No. 1 seed Chattanooga in the championship game at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and need to beet the Lady Mocs twice to be crowned champion.
Datko (San Diego, Calif.) proved she deserved her SoCon Pitcher of the Year award with her complete-game shutout performance. Datko scattered four hits across the seven innings and struck out nine Spartans. Datko required 90 pitches to take down UNCG and threw 61 of them for strikes.
"It's exciting that we've been able to string these wins together," said head coach Shelly Hoerner. "We've had one goal and that's the conference championship. We've never given up on that through the ups and downs of the season. Now we're really achieving and playing well and going after it.
"Alexa obviously pitched well today to shut down their hitters. She followed through on her game plan and we had great defense behind her. This is how she has thrown all year and I had a gut feeling she was going to show up ready to pitch today.
"We're going to stay in the present and take it one pitch at a time and one play at a time like we have all tournament."
"All I could think about was staying with my mechanics and trustin that I had a good defense behind me," said Datko. "I was focusing on keeping the ball off the plate and moving and just trusting my defense.
"It's important to keep this momentum moving forward and we believe in ourselves fully."
The Cougars mounted an early lead in the first when Carly Corthell (Reno, Nev.) drew a leadoff walk and Katie Forbes (Odessa, Fla.) singled to right to advance Corthell to third. Kelsey Hodgson (Woodstock, Ga.) picked up her fifth RBI of the tournament with a single to center field.
CofC expanded upon the lead in the fourth with a one-out triple by Katie Pesature (Brewster, N.Y.) and a timely RBI single by Kristi Woodall (Huntersville, N.C.).
