College Softball Finals – Guilford 2-7, Ferrum 4-4

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Savannah Yale’s two-out, RBI double in the sixth inning broke a 4-4 tie and helped Guilford College to a 7-4 softball win over visiting Ferrum College Wednesday. Makayla Carver followed with a two-run double to help the Quakers (21-10, 7-9 ODAC) split the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) twinbill on Haworth Field.

Ferrum (17-17, 7-9 ODAC) rallied to win the opener, 4-2 in eight innings, behind two Allison McGehee home runs.

Katie McNeill, who threw a complete-game for the Quakers in game one, relieved Abigayle Rowell (6-4) in the nightcap and tossed a perfect seventh inning for her first save this season.

The Quakers spotted Rowell 3-0 first-inning lead on Makayla Crawford’s run-scoring single and Katy Holt’s two-run double. Carver singled and stole second base in the frame, which gives her a school-record tying 57 career thefts.

Ferrum answered in the top of the second on Lois Carpenter’s solo home run. A Casey Bunting sacrifice fly in the third restored Guilford’s three-run lead, but Ferrum tallied twice in the fifth and tied the game in the sixth when Carpenter scored on a Rowell wild pitch.

Panthers’ starter Ashton Lambeth (Browns Summit, N.C./Northern Guilford) (12-6) retired the first two Quakers in the sixth and appeared to retire the side, but she misplayed Sarah Adams’ comebacker to the mound, which extended the inning. After Sarah Aukamp’s bloop single to right, Yale lined a single down the left-field line that plated Adams with the go-ahead run. Carver followed with a two-run double off the left-field wall that provided the game’s final margin.

Guilford’s Carver, Crawford, and Natalie Conrad each had two hits. The Quakers’ top-three batters combined for six hits, four runs, three stolen bases and three RBI in the nightcap.

Ferrum’s Cheyenne Strickland went 3-for-4. Carpenter and Keri Hamlett both added two hits.

Crawford’s team-leading ninth homer of the season gave Guilford a 2-0 first inning lead in game one. McNeill withstood McGehee’s solo blast in the fourth that got the Panthers on the board and took a 2-1 edge into the seventh.

Ferrum’s Tori Scott led off with a double and took third on Bailey Oakes’ bunt single to third. McNeill fanned pinch-hitter Tiffanie Moore for the inning’s first out before Carpenter followed with a ground ball up the middle to Guilford shortstop Sarah Aukamp. Aukamp made the force at second base, but could not complete the double play, which allowed the tying run to score.

The Quakers put Carver in scoring position in the home seventh, but starter Jasmine Agee (5-11) walked Crawford with an empty base and retired Katy Holt on a grounder to third to end the threat.

McGehee (2-4, 3 RBI) broke the tie in the eighth with her second homer of the game and fifth of the season. Agee retired the Quakers in order in the home eighth for her seventh complete game of the year.

McNeill and Yale had two hits apiece for the Quakers in game one.

Coach Dennis Shores’ club closes its home schedule Thursday with a nonconference doubleheader versus Pfeiffer University at 3:00 p.m. on Haworth Field.

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