April 23, 2009

HICKORY, N.C. - Carson-Newman's Stephanie Templeton (Ringgold, Ga.) fired a three-hit shutout as the sixth-seeded Carson-Newman Lady Eagles avenged a pair of regular-season losses in beating No. 3 Mars Hill 5-0 in the first round of the 2009 Food Lion South Atlantic Conference Softball Tournament on Thursday afternoon at Lenoir-Rhyne University.

With the win, Carson-Newman advances to face the winner of Lenoir-Rhyne and Tusculum on Friday at 11 a.m. on Friday at Bears Field. Mars Hill will face the L-R/TC loser on Friday at 11 a.m. at Hickory High School.

Templeton, now 7-2, scattered three hits and struck out four in recording the win, while Sarah Little (Calhoun, Ga.) drove in a pair of runs to lead the Lady Eagle offense.

Mars Hill's Tara West (Urbana, Ohio), now 9-9, suffered the loss, allowing four runs, three earned, in four and one-third innings of action.

Carson-Newman put a run on the board in the top of the first as Whitney Durham (Rossville, Ga.) came in to score on Little's single up the middle.

The Lady Eagle offense put three more runs across in the fifth, with Laura Potts (Jefferson City, Tenn.), Leah Price (Spring City, Tenn.) and Jessie Howard (Knoxville, Tenn.) coming across to score in an inning highlighted by a pair of Mars Hill errors in the infield.

The final run of the game came in the top of the seventh as Durham scored for the second time of the game on another Little base hit up the middle.

Mars Hill threatened in the bottom of the inning, as the Lions loaded the bases on a pair of Lady Eagles' errors. Templeton got Mars Hill's Ashley Angell (Winston-Salem, N.C.) to hit into a double play to end the threat and the game.

The top four batters in the Lady Eagles' lineup, Howard, Durham, Templeton, and Little, each had two hits on the day.

Ashley Seawell (Asheboro, N.C.), Ashley Harber (Goose Creek, S.C.) and Jade Bullins (Danbury, N.C.) each recorded hits for the Lions.

Boxscore...

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