Gaston College rolls to 15th straight victory in DH sweep on Friday afternoon

Gaston College's softball winning streak increased to 15 games with a doubleheader sweep over Monroe, N.Y., on Friday afternoon at Gastonia's CaroMont Health Park.

The Rhinos (18-2) won 9-1 in the opener and 15-1 in the nightcap of a pair of game stopped by the mercy rule after five innings.

The sweep came against a Mustangs' team that pushed Gaston College last May in the Region 10 championship tournament; The Rhinos won a pair of 2-0 games to advance to National Junior College Athletic Association district play a year ago.

This time, two huge innings made for comfortable victories in each contest as Gaston College battered Mustangs' ace pitcher Sarah Wall in the opener with an eight-run second inning and erupted for nine runs in the first inning of the nightcap.

"We talked about how good Wall is and I liked how locked-in we were on offense," Rhinos head coach Mike Steuerwald said. "She's a really tough pitcher and we were disciplined, executed our game plan and it was fun to see.
"Coming in, we're thinking, 'How are we going to score enough runs to win.' And our offense did a great job of being disciplined and getting runners on base and we got a big home run from Kealy."

Wall was the hard-luck loser in the 2-0 losses in the Region 10 tournament last year as she threw a one-hitter with nine strikeouts in the first meeting and a two-hitter with 12 strikeouts in the second game.

On Friday, after yielded two walks in the first innings, the Rhinos reached Wall for four hits and took advantage of three walks and a hit batter in the eight-run inning. Grace Kealy's three-run home run was the biggest hit as it made the score 5-0.

"We just got a lot of key hits up and down the lineup," Steuerwald said. "We were agressive out there and took extra bases whenever we could and put a lot of pressure on them."

Leadoff batter Gabrielle Porterfield led the eight-hit offense in the opener with three hits, two RBIs and a walk.

In the nightcap, Porterfield had four more hits and three RBIs to finish the day seven-for-seven with one walk.

Layla Manning (3 hits, 1 RBI), Kealy (2 hits, 1 RBI), Kendall Bradshaw (2 hits, triple, 3 RBIs) and Alayna Patrick (2 hits, 1 RBI) were other key contributors to a 15-hit offense.

On the mound Abigail Gawlinski fired a two-hitter with five strikeouts in the opener and Abigail Brewton had a three-hitter with seven strikeouts in the nightcap.