No. 15 Gaston College rolls to impressive sweep with Region 10 play up next

No. 15 Gaston College increased its softball winning streak to six games with an impressive doubleheader sweep over Surry Community College on Tuesday by 16-2 and 11-1 scores in games shortened to 4 1/2 innings by the mercy rule.

"We played really well," said Gaston College head coach Mike Steuerwald, whose team improved to 26-2 on the season. "We got a lot of people in the lineup and the offense kept going and we got a lot of pitchers in the circle and they gave us some good work."

The Rhinos scored five runs in the first inning of both games and went on to take comfortable victories.

"It's where we need to be entering our start of the conference schedule," said Steuerwald, whose team opens in Region 10 Division I schedule on Saturday for a 1 p.m. doubleheader against Florence Darlington Tech at Gastonia's CaroMont Health Park. "FloDar is sitting at 4-0 in the league and they're obviously the team that knocked us out last year.
"So we know where we need to be and what we need to do this weekend. We're turning the page on the schedule and starting the conference season and getting closer to our postseason goals."

In Tuesday's sweep, Grace Kealy (4 hits, 2 doubles, home run, 3 RBIs), Kendall Bradshaw (3 hits, double, 1 RBI), Skye Harrington (3 hits, 1 RBI), Sarah Johnson (2 hits, double, 1 RBI), Alayna Patrick (2 hits, double, 3 RBIs), Savanna Price (2 hits, double, triple, 4 RBIs) and Mary Hinson (2 hits, 3 RBIs) led the offense.

On the mound, Savanna Mullins started and went four innings for the victory with reliever Courtney Grimmer going one inning in the opener and Abigail Brewton went four innings with eight strikeouts for the victory with reliever Hinson going one inning in the nightcap.