LAGRANGE, Ga. — Freshman
Hannah Thompson smiled and embraced her freshman catcher
Anna Coleman with a big hug as the rest of the Averett softball team celebrated behind them.
Averett (31-15) softball battled back from a Friday loss to win three games on Saturday and advance back into Sunday's USA South Conference Tournament championship matchup against Maryville College. Averett earns a rematch with Maryville, which is undefeated in the double-elimination tournament, on Sunday at noon. The Cougars must beat the Scots twice in order to win the tournament. Averett's only loss in the tournament was to Maryville, a 2-1 defeat in eight innings on Friday.
Averett worked its way back to the title matchup by beating Salem College 8-6 to end the day on Saturday. The Cougars opened the day with a 4-1 win over Piedmont College and kept going by eliminating Huntingdon College 3-2 with a walk-off victory.
Down 2-0 against Salem (25-17) with a championship appearance on the line, Averett exploded for six runs in the top of the second. Junior
Nicole Cauthen's RBI single got the Cougars on the scoreboard, and junior
Casey Cook's sacrifice fly scored freshman
Kaity Sullivan to tie the game. Averett went 3-2 ahead on junior
Kaitlyn Aherron's RBI single. Freshman
Erin Rankin brought her home with an RBI double and Thompson followed by crushing a two-run blast to center field to make it 6-2.
Although Salem got two runs back in the third inning to get within two, Averett responded with back-to-back RBI doubles from Thompson and Coleman to extend the Cougars' lead to 8-4 in the fourth.
Salem made things interesting in the bottom of the seventh by scoring a pair of runs and had the tying run at the plate before Thompson induced a popup to second base for the final out to lift Averett.
Aherron went 4-for-4, with Thompson and junior
Breanna Murphy each adding two hits. Thompson closed out the game that featured four pitchers for the Cougars. Sophomore
Dani Kahn (3-3) earned the win in relief, allowing two unearned runs on three hits in 4.2 innings pitched.
Averett advanced to play the Spirits by edging Huntingdon (31-15) for the second time in two days on Coleman's walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning.
The Cougars took a 1-0 lead in the second inning behind Cook's RBI sacrifice fly, and Averett added a second run in the third on Coleman's first RBI single of the game.
Aherron pitched well through the first five innings before Huntingdon's offense made noise in the sixth inning. With the bases loaded and no outs, the Hawks pulled within 2-1 when a run scored on a wild pitch. A sacrifice fly moments later tied the game. Huntingdon had an opportunity to take the lead with the bases loaded and two outs, but Coleman threw out Annie Nolan while trying to score from third on a wild pitch to end the inning.
With both teams held scoreless over their next at-bat, Averett got a leadoff single from Rankin to start the bottom of the seventh. Thompson's line-drive single to the right-center gap moved sophomore pinch runner over to third on the play. Coleman then stroked a pitch to left-center, scoring Patterson with the winning run.
Thompson earned the win in relief. She also finished with two hits, along with Coleman and freshman
Zamyiah Mangum.
Averett opened the day with a 4-1 win over Piedmont (29-10) to stay alive. Mangum had the would-be-game-winning hit in that victory with her third-inning grand slam to left field.
Junior
Taylor Bailey (7-5) went the first four innings to earn the win while allowing just one run — unearned — before Thompson finished off the final three innings to earn her second save of the year.
Piedmont's only run came in the fifth on an RBI sacrifice bunt.
