MARYVILLE – Defending champion and No. 7-ranked Belhaven flashed its repeat title credentials here Saturday with a doubleheader sweep against a quality Maryville squad.
The Blazers won 5-1 and 5-0, limiting the Scots to just two hits in each game. The losses snapped Maryville's 10-game winning streak and kept the Scots in third place in the Collegiate Conference of the South standings.
Maryville at 10-4 in the CCS is tied with Piedmont in the loss column. The Lions are 8-4 after dropping a pair at home Saturday to Huntingdon. Piedmont is home again Sunday against LaGrange, and Maryville ends its regular season with a noon doubleheader at Piedmont next Saturday.
The Scots are now 27-11 overall and Belhaven sits at 30-4.
Ackerman vs. Carruth
The league's top two pitchers faced off in Game 1, with Belhaven's Kennedy Carruth coming out on top against Maryville's
Megan Ackerman. Carruth allowed a hit and an unearned run in the first inning for a 1-0 Scots lead but then shut the door and allowed just one more hit the rest of the way – a seventh-inning single by
Emily Hill.
Meanwhile, solo home runs to center from Ellie Jones in the second inning and Allie Gordon in the third flipped the Blazers into the lead. Belhaven added three big runs in the sixth to salt it away.
Carruth improved to 17-1 on the season and lowered her league-leading ERA to 0.63. In conference play, that number sits at 0.17. Ackerman dropped to 15-4. Carruth is now 4-0 in her career against Maryville.
Macy Funderburk pitched the first five inning for Belhaven in Game 2, blanking the Scots on just one hit and improving to 4-0 on the season. The Blazers scored two runs in the third inning and three more in the fifth against Maryville's
Whitney Carr, who lost for the first time since March 13 and fell to 7-2.
Carruth and Ackerman came on and covered the final two innings of the nightcap for their respective squads but did not factor in the decisions.
Hill Keeps Hit-Streak Alive
Hill was the only Scot with multiple hits, and the first baseman with a single in each contest extended her hitting streak to 15 games. She managed a combined 2-for-6 and is batting .553 during her hitting streak to lift her season mark to .378, third on the team.
Paige Dickinson had an RBI-single in Game 1 and
Sara Koonce ripped a double in Game 2 for Maryville's other hits.
Gordon homered twice more for Belhaven in Game 2, a two-run shot in the third and a solo blast in the fifth. She leads the CCS with 10 home runs and is second with 44 RBIs to Huntingdon's Jordan Holma with 48. Koonce and Holma are tied for second in home runs with seven, and Koonce is third with 41 RBIs.
Senior Day Recognition
Before the game, Maryville celebrated Senior Day with the introduction of nine departing seniors. In addition to Ackerman, Hill and Koonce, MC seniors recognized were
Courtney Baine,
Micayla Clark,
Cierra Hudson,
Bailey Myers,
Ava Whitmire and
Kaitlin Woodruff.
The Scots ended their home season 12-4 for their best full-season home mark since the 2018 squad finished 13-4. The 2020 team was 9-1 at home when the Covid-19 pandemic halted play.
