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Longwood softball headed to regional final

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The underdog Longwood softball team is heading back to the NCAA Regional final for the second straight year.

Facing elimination in back-to-back games, the Lancers (30-28) pulled off the improbable, upsetting Knoxville Regional No. 2 seed Ohio State 3-1 and No. 3 seed USC Upstate 4-2 Saturday to move on to Sunday’s regional championship round against No. 8 national seed Tennessee Sunday at 12 p.m. at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium.

The Lancers, who have now on 14 of their past 17 games, kept up their midseason turnaround behind a pair of strong outings from the All-Big South pitching duo of Sydney Gay and Elizabeth McCarthy Saturday. Gay (15-15) twirled a four-hit complete game in Saturday’s opener against Ohio State, and McCarthy (15-10) followed with 5.1 innings of two-run ball against USC Upstate before Gay polished off the win with a five-out save.

Longwood junior Glenn Walters played hero in the first inning against USC Upstate (45-13), mashing a bases-loaded, three-run triple that put the Lancers ahead for good. The Glen Allen, Va., native drove in four total runs on the day, sending in the first run of Longwood’s 3-1 win in Saturday’s victory over the Buckeyes with an RBI double.

USC Upstate entered the regional with one of the nation’s top pitching staffs, sporting a 1.39 ERA that was the seventh-best in the country. They used those arms to down Ohio State 7-3 in Friday’s opening round and carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning before host Tennessee rallied for a 7-3 victory earlier Saturday.

However, after Longwood’s upset win over Ohio State Saturday afternoon, it was the Lancers who carried the momentum into Saturday night’s elimination matchup against the Spartans. Walters’ three-run double sparked a four-run first inning that was enough of a cushion for McCarthy, who scattered eight hits over her 5.1 innings. Gay took over with one out in the sixth and needed just 20 pitches to record five consecutive outs and secure the win.

The win pushes the Lancers back to an NCAA Regional final for the second straight year following last season’s surge to the Harrisonburg Regional final against No. 6 national seed James Madison. Longwood also won back-to-back elimination games on Saturday that year, defeating both Princeton and North Carolina before falling in Sunday’s final to the host Dukes.

Over the past three years, Longwood has now eliminated Virginia Tech (2015), Princeton (2016), North Carolina (2016), Ohio State (2017) and USC Upstate (2017) in NCAA Regional play. The Lancers, who have advanced to NCAA postseason play in four of the past five seasons, improved to 5-7 in regional play during the 10-year Division I era, becoming Big South’s new all-time leader in NCAA postseason victories.

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