BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – To open the final home weekend of the 2024 season, the Samford softball team split a Saturday doubleheader with the Western Carolina Catamounts by dropping game one 3-1 before exploding for eight runs in the nightcap for an 8-6 victory.
With the split, the Bulldogs enter Senior Sunday with a record of 18-28 overall and 10-7 in Southern Conference play. Western Carolina will wake up on Sunday morning with marks of 15-30 and 6-11.
In game one,
Jordyn Partain got the start in the circle for Samford and took the loss despite only allowing a trio of runs in her team-best 14th complete game of the season. Partain also fanned six Catamounts in the series weekend opener.
Two of the four Samford base knocks in game one belonged to
Grier Bruce as the junior paced the Bulldog attack. The other two hits in the contest were recorded by
Olivia Shaw and
Logan Champion.
Western Carolina jumped out to a 2-0 lead after scoring runs in each of the second and third innings. The Catamounts added an insurance run with an RBI single in the top of the seventh to pad their lead to 3-0.
The lone Samford run of the game came with one out in the bottom of the seventh when Bruce jettisoned a 1-0 pitch over the wall in left field for her fourth home on the season and first since March 9 against Southern Miss.
Back-to-back Bulldog flyouts following Bruce's dinger helped Western Carolina to the 3-1 final.
In the nightcap,
McKenzie Newcomb picked up her fifth win of the season in the 8-6 slugfest. Newcomb surrendered six runs on 10 hits but also struck out eight to keep the Catamounts at bay.
Sarah Squillace played the role of sparkplug on Saturday afternoon going 3-for-4 with a run driven in and a run scored.
McKayla Cothran and Champion backed up Squillace by both going 2-for-3.
After being held in check for most of game one, Samford opened the nightcap with three straight base hits resulting in Squillace scoring on an
Olivia Shaw RBI single up the middle to give Samford a 1-0 lead before an out was recorded. Another run came a few pitches later when Bruce grounded out to shortstop to bring home Cothran for a 2-0 advantage.
Shaw's RBI single in the home half of the first pushed her season-best hitting streak to 12 games, which is the longest by a Bulldog since Meritt Cahoon hit safely in 13-straight games during the 2022 season.
After a scoreless second frame, Samford exploded for four runs in the bottom of the third featuring an RBI single from Champion and a three-run home run off the bat of
Katie Campbell that made it a 6-0 contest.
Campbell's three-run blast was her 12 of the season and gave her 44 RBIs on the year. The freshman now sits three dingers away from Whitney Hinton's single-season home record of 15 and one RBI back of Hinton's single-season RBI tally of 45.
Western Carolina began to claw back by scoring a single run in the top of the fourth before exploding for five in the fifth to tie the contest at 6-6 with five and a half innings in the books.
What proved to be the game-winning hit came in the bottom of the frame when Squillace singled home
Linsey Hargis for a 7-6 Bulldog lead. Insurance came one at-bat later when
Ansley Yantis scored to make it 8-6 on a Cothran sacrifice fly.
Newcomb retired five of the final six Catamounts she faced to secure the 8-6 victory and the Saturday split.
UP NEXT
The Samford softball program will celebrate Senior Day on Sunday with
Lindsey Nelson,
Ansley Yantis and
Abigail Dorsett being celebrated with a pregame ceremony. Sunday's rubber match is set to get underway at 1 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN+.
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