DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Junior
Aleyah Evans had a pair of hits that helped the North Carolina Central University softball team score its first three runs and sophomore
Ava Dolan followed with a pair of home runs as the Lady Eagles earned a 6-4 victory over host Bethune-Cookman University in Saturday's first game.
Senior pitcher
Courtney Mirabella tossed another quality start (6+ innings with three or fewer earned runs allowed) with eight strikeouts for her second straight victory.
The win, which included a one-hour and 56-minute lightning/rain delay, improved NCCU to 9-18 overall and 2-5 in the Southern Division. The triumph was the first win for the Lady Eagles over BCU since NCCU joined the MEAC at the start of the 2011-12 season (now 1-17).
The Wildcats have raced out to an 8-2 lead in the second game of the scheduled doubleheader when play was halted for the day when inclement weather returned to Sunnyland Park with two outs in the top of the sixth.
Bethune-Cookman (19-23, 4-3) will try and hold off a comeback attempt by the Lady Eagles when play resumes at Noon on Sunday. NCCU has two runners on base. A full recap of that game and the series finale will be published Sunday.
In the opener, NCCU led from the onset. Evans knocked in the first two runs with a single to left field. Freshman
Jacobia Johnson, who started the contest with a single, and Dolan, who drew a walk, scored on the two-run hit by Evans.
Three walks in the bottom of the second led to BCU's first run on a groundout. However, NCCU pushed ahead by three runs (4-1) with a tally in both the fourth and fifth innings.
Evans started the fourth with a single and the Lady Eagles eventually scored an unearned run that frame because of the opening hit. Dolan's seventh and eighth home run of the season added three important insurance runs in the fifth and seventh.
Dolan hammered her first long ball to straightaway center. The native of Las Vegas, Nevada, launched her second one over the fence in left field. Johnson led off the seventh with another single and she scored for a second time on Dolan's second dinger.
Mirabella (8-11) gave up two late runs, but was able to keep pitching despite the nearly two-hour delay, to complete her eighth win and 15th complete game.
The Lady Eagles doubled-up Bethune-Cookman, 10-5, in the hit column with two hits apiece by Evans, Dolan and Johnson.
Sophomore Ryan Jackson accounted for two of the Wildcats' five base knocks, including her league-leading 15th home run in the seventh. Junior Cheyenne Smith added an RBI-triple in the sixth that pulled the hosts within one at 4-3 before Dolan went yard again.
