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Box Score 2 Related: Kutztown Uses Extra Frames To Top Softball In Season Opener
PEMBROKE – Visiting Concord took advantage of two errors and a pair of passed balls to plate four runs in the first inning and held back a pair of rallies in the middle innings to turn back the UNC Pembroke softball team, 6-3, on Friday afternoon at LRA Field.
The loss kept the Braves (0-2) winless in the 3-game-old series with Concord (3-2) – a West Virginia-based team who will play its first 14 games of the season in the state of North Carolina.
Three freshmen registered multi-hit outings for UNCP, including Jamie Johnson and Lexie Coxe who both scored runs on 2-for-3 hitting lines. Toni Nelson turned in a 2-for-3 day at the plate as well.
Kristen Rose walked, doubled, homered and drove in two runs on a perfect 2-for-2 day at the plate. Courtney Purtell (2-for-4, RBI) and Kristi Benvenuto (2-for-3) tallied a pair of hits as well.
Newcomer Dakota Leviner (0-1) saddled the loss for the Braves after yielding six runs (three earned) on nine hits and a pair of walks over a complete game in her first collegiate start. Lacey McDougall (2-1) picked up the win for the Mountain Lions despite yielding three runs (one earned) on eight hits and one walk in seven innings of work. She also struck out two.
Concord got its first two batters of the game aboard via a single and an ill-timed error, but scored three runs a short time later after a sacrifice fly by Rose and an errant throw on a pickoff attempt that evaded the outfielders and rolled all the way to the wall. A passed ball following a two-out strikeout by Leviner helped the visitors stretch their lead out to 4-0.
UNCP cut into its deficit on Brea Hartley's RBI double in the bottom of the first, but Rose hit a one-out solo homer to push the lead back to four runs. The Braves struck for two more runs in the fifth on the shoulders of a RBI single by Whitney Jackson and a costly fielding error by Concord, but the Mountain Lions added an insurance run in the sixth on a fielder's choice RBI by Purtell.
The Braves will continue play in the UNCP Invitational with a pair of games on Saturday. The Black & Gold will battle Winston-Salem State (0-2) at 3 p.m., before taking on Pfeiffer (2-2) at 7 p.m. Admission is free.
