JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. --- Anna Alloway and Emily Sappington recorded three hits apiece in the opener as the Tusculum Pioneers split a South Atlantic Conference softball doubleheader at Carson-Newman Wednesday afternoon.
Sappington also tossed her team-leading 11th complete game in the first game victory as the Pioneers prevailed 8-4. In the second game, Carson-Newman's Morgan Baker-Celis tossed a four-hit shutout as the Eagles won 2-0 in the night-cap.
The Pioneers (14-14, 8-8 SAC) record their sixth straight doubleheader split and remain in a tie for seventh place in the league standings. Tusculum returns to action this Sunday as they travel to Queens University of Charlotte for a 1 p.m. SAC doubleheader.
Game 1: Tusculum 8, Carson-Newman 4
Sappington went 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI while recording her sixth win in the pitching circle in an 8-4 Tusculum win over the Eagles. The victory was TU's first in Jefferson City since the Pioneers' 2013 SAC Championship season.
Alexis Grampp put the Pioneers on the board in the first inning with her two-out solo home run to right field. C-N answered with two runs in the bottom of the first as Katie Eakes lifted a two-run homer to centerfield.
Tusculum tied the game with a run in the seconding and took the lead with three runs in the third as the Pioneers led 5-2. Hayley Lazo bunted home Sappington from third base in the second inning to tie the contest at 2-2. TU scored three times the third thanks to a two-run double off the bat of Kiley Longmire and Sappington followed with a two-out RBI single.
Carson-Newman trimmed the deficit to 5-4 with two runs in the inning thanks to Macey Hughes two-out, two-run base hit.
Tusculum added an insurance run in the fourth inning on Alloway's RBI single and two more tallies in the seventh on Choloe Freischmidt's RBI double and a Sappington run-scoring hit.
After spotting the Eagles four runs through three innings, Sappington blanked C-N for the final four frames, while managing to work her way out of bases loaded jam in the fourth and stranded two in the seventh. From fourth inning to the sixth, she retired 10 batters in a row.
The Pioneers finished with 11 hits and tied a school single-game record with five sacrifice bunts, matching the mark posted by TU at Lenoir-Rhyne on Mar. 20, 1999 and at Francis Marion on Apr. 10, 2014.
Sappington allowed four runs on eight hits, one walk and tallied five strikeouts to even her record at 6-6. C-N starter Lacie Rinus (5-9) suffered the loss in her complete game effort.
Game 2: Carson-Newman 2, Tusculum 0
Baker-Celis (4-0) limited the Pioneers for four hits while striking out four in a 2-0 shutout win for Carson-Newman.
Rinus broke a scoreless deadlock in the fourth inning with her two-out single to left field to drive in pinch-runner Madison Mathis. The Eagles (18-10, 11-9 SAC) added another run in the fifth frame as Macey Hughes singled down the left field line to make it a 2-0 game.
Meanwhile, Baker-Celis scattered four hits over her seven innings of work as she didn't allow a Pioneer past second base for the entire game. She retired the side in the second, fourth and seventh innings.
Claire Smeltzer hit a one-out double in the top of the fifth inning for Tusculum, but that runner would be stranded there. TU also got back-to-back one-out singles from Mya Maddox and Grampp in the sixth, but Baker-Celis ended the threat with a strikeout and a ground out.
Tusculum starter Keylon Reynolds (2-1) pitched four strong innings, scattering four hits, allowing two runs, walked two and one strikeout. Sappington came on in relief in the fifth where she allowed a hit with four strikeouts.
