Gaston College wraps up second straight Region 10 regular season title with DH sweep on Saturday

Gaston College's softball wrapped up its second straight Region 10 Division I title on Saturday with a doubleheader sweep at USC Sumter by 15-1 and 9-0 scores.

The Rhinos, a third-year program, finished 14-2 in Region 10 to finish two games ahead of Florence-Darlington Tech in the league standings.

"We played well, we played quick and took care of business," said Gaston College coach Mike Steuerwald, whose 47-7 team has received votes in eight of the last nine National Junior College Athletic Association Division I polls. "We opened up fast today with a 10-spot in the first inning and left no doubt I guess."

Pitchers Abigail Brewton and Abigail Gawlinski fired back-to-back complete efforts in the sweep. Brewton yielded five hits and one run with two strikeouts in her 68-pitch effort and Gawlinski followed by yielding two hits in a 46-pitch game. Gawlinski had a perfect game into the fourth inning.

"Anytime in a doubleheader when you barely break 100 pitches, it's impressive," Steuerwald said. "They came out being really aggressive from the start against those two this time. But they both made really good pitches."

The offense erupted for 29 hits, including 12 for extra bases, in rolling to the victory. Gaston College scored 10 runs in the first inning of the first game and four runs in the first inning (all after two outs) in the second game.

Grace Kealy (5 hits, double, home run, 2 RBIs), Emma Ghorley (4 hits, double, 5 RBIs), Gabrielle Porterfield (3 hits, 2 triples, 1 RBI), Kendall Bradshaw (3 hits, 1 RBI), Alayna Patrick (2 hits, double, 3 RBIs), Logan Lilly (2 hits, 3 RBIs) and Layla Manning (2 hits, double) led the offense.

The Rhinos won last year's regular season title with a 15-1 Region 10 mark before going 3-0 in the Region 10 tournament and 2-0 in the district tournament on their way to a historic appearance in the NJCAA World Series in Oxford, Ala.

This season, Gaston College need to win next week's Region 10 tournament in Sumter, S.C., and another district tournament to return to the World Series.

The journey begins on Thursday as the Rhinos will be the top-seed in the six-team tournament.