BOONE, N.C. - The College of Charleston softball team defeated top-seeded Georgia Southern, 4-3, in the first edition of the Southern Conference championship game on Saturday afternoon. The Eagles' loss was their first in the double-elimination tournament so the teams will play a deciding game immediately.
All of the runs in the game for both teams were scored off of home runs which fits the story of this year's combined homerun-record-breaking tournament numbers put up by the participants.
Hope Klicker (Walla Walla, Wash.) pitched effectively into the seventh inning and earned her fifth win of this year's tournament. Stephanie Saylors (Easley, S.C.) came in to seal the victory and earned her third save of the year.
CofC led 4-0 at one point in the game and got its homeruns out of Mackenzie Maples (Corona, Calif.), Carly Corthell (Reno, Nev.) and Kristy Giragosian (Charlotte, N.C.).
The Cougars - riding the momentum from the morning's thrilling come-from-behind win over Chattanooga which put them in the championship game - got started early when Maples hammered a two-out pitch out of the park in left after Corthell had reached on a walk.
Corthell got to make her second trot around the bases when she led off the third inning with her own homerun which hooked just inside the leftfield foul pole and put CofC up 3-0.
Giragosian led off the fifth inning in similar fashion and provided CofC's tournament-high ninth homerun of the week. The 2012 teams have shattered the previous tournament record of 20 home runs with a total of 36 thus far in 2012 with the Cougars providing the bulk.
The Eagles started to claw back into the game in the sixth when Tabby Douberley got in on the homerun action and lined one out of the park to cut CofC's lead to 4-1.
The Eagles threatened further in the sixth by loading the bases without getting the ball out of the infield but Klicker bore down on the situation and forced ground ball outs to get out of the inning with the help of her defense.
In the seventh, Hanna Ennis sent a one-out pitch over the fence on a low line drive with Alexa Lewis aboard to cut the score to 4-3.
Saylors entered the circle and recorded back-to-back outs to thwart the Eagles' comeback try and force the tournament's sixth ever if-necessary game to be played with the tournament's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line.
This is only the sixth time in the history of the tournament this game has been played and the first time in three years.
