By: by Scott Lipsky
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A-Sun Championship Home
SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Kennesaw State Owls 2011 softball season came to an end on Thursday morning, dropping a, 7-1, decision to the Campbell Camels in their second game of the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship, hosted by USC Upstate.
“Nobody ever wants to see a season come to an end the way it did today,” said Owls head coach Scott Whitlock. “The players and I wished that we had played better, but I couldn’t ask the players to play any harder than they did.”
The Owls (28-27) broke a scoreless tie in the top of the third inning when, with runners on first and second and two outs, Bianca Durant, who went 2-for-3 in the game, hit a slow chopper to shortstop that was handled by Amanda Miller, but her throw to first was thrown away, scoring Ashlee Burkett from second base to make it 1-0 Owls.
Thursday’s game would be marked by a pair of three-run home runs, however, which would propel Campbell (31-27) to the victory. Still leading, 1-0, in the bottom of the fourth, after three scoreless innings of pitching by Cross, the Camels began to rally offensively. After a pair of walks to leadoff the inning, Cross would leave the pitcher’s circle in favor of Cat Tarvin. The first batter she faced was designated player Raven Lee, who lofted a Tarvin offering over the right center field fence that gave Campbell a 3-1 lead.
The Black and Gold would strand two runners in top of the fifth inning, and it was in the bottom of the fifth when Campbell would put the game away. The first two runners would reach base before Lauren Stephan, who hit three home runs against the Owls on Apr. 9, hit a three-run home run of her own, lining an Abbey Meixel offering over the right center field fence to make it 6-1. They would add one more run in the bottom of the sixth on a sacrifice fly.
Cross, Jensen Hackett and Brittany Moore also recorded a hit apiece in the contest.
Playing in the final game of her collegiate career on Thursday was outfielder Lyndsay McCurry, who started in right field for the Owls. She ends her career with a .303 lifetime batting average, including a .365 mark this season. McCurry is currently the all-time leader in the Owls Division I era with 41 career stolen bases, and is tied for fifth on the program’s all-time list.
"We are all very proud of the way Lyndsay conducted herself as a player and as a teammate during her four years here," Whitlock said.
Owls Postseason Notes
-With their completion of the A-Sun Championship, the Owls move to 110-41 in postseason play since beginning fast pitch competition in 1991. They are now 35-13 all-time in conference tournament, and 1-4 in the A-Sun Championship.
-The Owls, 7-5, loss to USC Upstate on Wednesday evening marked the first time in four postseason contests that the Owls allowed the Spartans to score. The Black and Gold shutout the Spartans (then the USC-Spartanburg Rifles), 8-0 in both the 1998 and 2005 Peach Belt Conference Tournaments. They scratched out a 1-0 victory over their old Division II rivals in last year’s A-Sun Championship, the Owls first ever post-season contest at the Division I level.
-Thursday’s match-up against Campbell was the final time the Owls and Camels will face off against one another as A-Sun rivals. Campbell is slated to move back to the Big South Conference, which they were charter members of, beginning in the fall of 2011.
-Sharon Swanson started both games at shortstop during the A-Sun Championship. Prior to the Owls doubleheader at Mercer on Apr. 30, their regular season finale, Swanson had made 93 of her 94 career starts in left field, with her other start coming as the designated player.
-Swanson and Jensen Hackett end the season as the two Owls who were in the starting lineup for all 55 of the Owls contests in 2011. Brittany Moore played in all 55 games, making 54 starts.
