Gaston College softball finishes 2024 season as Region 10 tournament runner-up

Gaston College's dreams of a return trip to the National Junior College Athletic Association World Series were dashed on Saturday in a 12-5 loss to Florence-Darlington Tech in the 2024 Region 10 tournament championship game.

The Rhinos finished 49-9 overall for a school-record for victories and winning percentage. Gaston College softball coach Mike Steuerwald's program also drew NJCAA national poll consideration by receiving votes in nine of the last 10 polls of the season.

"It was a great season with a lot of accomplishments," Steuerwald said. "It just didn't end the way we hoped that it would."

Gaston College started Saturday's with an early 3-0 lead on Grace Kealy's first-inning home run.

Both the Stingers (32-12), who went 3-0 in the Region 10 tournament, continued their offensive excellence against the Rhinos with three runs in the third and fourth innings to take the lead for good and a six-run sixth inning that sealed the verdict.

Kealy (2 hits, double, home run, 5 RBIs) led the Rhinos' four-hit offense.

"You need your players to step up and Kealy got us started well and set us up well," Steuerwald said.

Following Saturday's game, Rhinos outfielder Gabrielle Porterfield, pitcher Abigail Gawlinski, catcher Gracie Brown and infield Alayna Patrick were named to the All-Region 10 postseason tournament team.

"For the first few innings, we were executing our game plan well with all of the defensive shuffles we made trying to combat their offense," Steuerwald said. "We just didn't continue to play well on the defensive end. We had a couple of innings, where we didn't field well the small game and it just fell apart on us."

On the season, Florence-Darlington Tech won four of six games against Gaston College with a 41-21 run differential. More importantly, the Stingers' offense forced the Rhinos into uncharacteristic defensive miscues; Gaston College made 20 of its 62 errors this season against Florence-Darlington Tech that led to 19 unearned runs.

"We just didn't match up with their hitters from a pitching standpoint," Steuerwald said. "Four of our nine losses on the year came against them. I guess you could say they kinda got us playing on our heels a little bit and we didn't make the plays that we were capable of making."

The loss ended the careers of seven sophomores - Brown, Tessa Hunt, Gawlinski, Kinsey Johnson, Logan Lilly, Grace Manning and Porterfield.

"I told them in postgame that I just wanted to thank them because they fulfilled what we talk about as a program," Steuerwald said of his sophomore class. "And that's to leave things better than you find them - whether it's a dugout after a game or the field and things like that. I told that group that they left this program better than what we had when they came here.
"They were 92-19 over two years with two regular season titles and a World Series berth. That's an incredible run. The challenge that they've left behind for the freshman is in setting a really, really high bar of expectation."

Here's the Region 10 tournament results and schedule:

(Thursday, May 2)
Game 1 - No. 3 Monroe, N.Y. vs. No. 5 USC Union - USC Union 6-4
Game 2 - No. 4 Spartanburg Methodist vs. No. 6 USC Sumter - Spartanburg Methodist 8-0
Game 3 - No. 1 Gaston College vs. USC Union - Gaston 4-1
Game 4 - No. 2 Florence-Darlington Tech vs. Spartanburg Methodist - Florence-Darlington 4-3 in 8 innings
(Friday, May 3)
Game 5 - Monroe, N.Y. vs. USC Sumter - Monroe 3-0
Game 6 - USC Union vs. Spartanburg Methodist - Spartanburg Methodist 8-6
Game 7 - Gaston College vs. Florence-Darlington Tech - Florence-Darlington 9-4
Game 8 - Monroe, N.Y. vs. USC Union - Monroe 2-1
Game 9 - Gaston College vs. Monroe, N.Y. - Gaston 5-4
(Saturday, May 4)
Game 10 - Florence-Darlington Tech vs. Gaston College - Florence-Darlington 12-5