Gaston College sweeps Region 10 road doubleheader at USC Union

Following a rare home loss, Gaston College's softball team responded with an impressive Region 10 road doubleheader sweep victory on Tuesday at USC Union.

The Rhinos (22-4, 3-1 Region 10) defeated the host Bantams 11-1 in five innings in the opener and won 12-0 in six innings in the nightcap behind complete game pitching efforts from Abigail Brewton and Abigail Gawlinski.

Gaston College coach Mike Steuerwald had been using Gawlinski in the opener of doubleheaders and Brewton in the nightcaps. On Tuesday, he flipped those duties.

"It's just something we discussed as a coaching staff and it certainly worked well today," Steuerwald said.

Brewton, coming off her first defeat as a collegian in last Friday's 2-0 home loss to Florence-Darlington Tech, scattered eight hits, yielded an unearned run and no walks while striking out six to improve to 12-1.

Gawlinski was even more effective with a five-hit shutout with no walks and seven strikeouts to improve to 9-3.

Offensively, the Rhinos had 25 hits and took advantage of seven USC Union fielding errors to score 23 total runs.

Alayna Patrick (4 hits, 2 RBIs), Skye Harrington (4 hits, 2 RBIs), Gabrielle Porterfield (4 hits, 2 RBIs), Dakota Marshall (3 hits, 1 RBI), Logan Lilly (2 hits, 1 RBI), Layla Manning (2 hits, 2 RBIs) and Phoebe Cole (2-run single) led the Gaston College offense in the sweep.

"We're in a little bit of a midseason lull of not playing all that great," Steuerwald said. "As long as we can keep winning while not maybe playing our best softball, that's a good thing."

The Rhinos return to action in Wednesday's 2 p.m. doubleheader at Gastonia's CaroMont Health Park against fellow 2023 National Junior College Athletic Association World Series participant Gordon State.

Gaston College split a doubleheader at Gordon State earlier this season and Gaston College's Region 10 has to travel to play at Gordon State's Region 17 for a NJCAA district playoff that sends its winner to the 2024 World Series later this spring.

That means Wednesday's games could offer a postseason preview for both teams.

"It was good to go down there and get a split early in the season," Steuerwald said of playing Gordon State. "I want to see how our group bounces back in a quick turnaround, which is kind of like what postseason will be about. So that'll be a good test for us."