CLINTON, S.C. – Sophomore shortstop
Jaylah Barr hit her second home run of the season and produced her third multi-RBI performance in the first two weeks of the season in leading the North Carolina Central University softball team to a 5-1 victory over University of Detroit Mercy on Saturday. The Eagles then ended play at the PC Invitational with a 13-0 loss to Appalachian State that afternoon.
NC Central (2-6 Overall) will next play five games in a tournament hosted by UNC Wilmington on Friday-Sunday, 25-27.
GAME ONE: NC Central 5, Detroit Mercy 1
The Eagles tallied a season-high nine hits and rode another strong pitching performance from freshman
Jaden Davis to win the morning game by four runs. Davis (2-1), who now has wins in each of her last two starts, held the Titans to just one run on five hits while striking out five.
Barr, senior
Madison Mifsud and junior
Diamond Porter all had two hits apiece to account for six of NCCU's nine hits.
Detroit Mercy (0-1) got on the board first with fifth-year senior designated player Leena Mortensen driving in the lone run with a single in the top of the first.
Barr knotted the score with a solo home run to begin the bottom of the second.
An inning later, Porter started the frame with a double and later scored the go-ahead run on a single by Barr.
The two RBI by Barr gives her three multi-RBI games on the season in seven games.
The Eagles pulled away with three runs in the fifth. Porter once against started things off for the Eagles with a single and Davis followed with an infield single. Freshman
Jaidyn Hamby plated both Porter and Davis with a double. Hamby accounted for the final maroon and gray tally when she scored on an error.
GAME TWO: Appalachian State 13, NC Central 0
The Mountaineers scored a season-high 13 runs on 12 hits and eight walks in coasting to their fourth straight win. App State (4-1 Overall) also held NCCU to just one hit.
Eight different Mountaineers tallied hits. Junior McKenzie McCullen only had one of those hits, but she supplied a game-high four RBI with a three-run homer and a sacrifice fly.
Davis had NCCU's lone hit with an early one-out infield single in the bottom of the first.
A pair of App State pitcher combined for the shutout and 11 strikeouts.
