ROME, Ga. – The Lee softball team wrapped up the regular season with a series win over rival Shorter thanks to an 8-5 victory on Sunday afternoon.
Claudia Jones continued to swing a red hot bat as she slugged two more homeruns and had four RBI to lead the 11-hit attack. Jones also homered in game two of Saturday's doubleheader and finished the series 5 for 8 with three home runs and eight RBI.
Kayla Louie had a 4 for 5 day (7 for 9 series) including two RBI. Senior Sarah Merced was the only other Lady Flame to record multiple hits as she added two singles.
Lee (27-27, 15-18) jumped out to a lead in the top of the second with back to back home runs by Jones and Sophomore Abby McKinney.
Coach Russell's squad piled on the lead with a five-run third inning highlighted by Jones' three run homerun. Zoe Miller was able to place a perfect squeeze bunt to score Stevie Baird, and Louie singled in Merced to give Lee a 7-1 lead.
Shorter (17-26, 12-20) responded in the bottom half of the inning. Kaylee Combs hit a sacrifice fly to left to score Maddie Hunt while Abi Valdes singled in Tiffany Holland to cut the lead to 7-3.
The Lady Hawks added two more in the bottom of the sixth with a Holland double to score Hunt before Carson Carriker singled in Holland to make the score 7-5.
Lee added an insurance run in the top half of the seventh with run-scoring single from Louie to bring in Sam Hill.
Shonna Penney (8-10) got the start in the circle for the Lady Flames and went 5.2 innings allowing 10 hits, five runs (four earned) and stuck out one. Erika Greek finished out the last 1.1 allowing only one hit and striking out one to earn the save.
Hunt, Holland, Valdes and Carriker all had two-hit efforts for Shorter.
Hannah Draper got the start and loss, lasting only two innings. Draper allowed five hits, four earned runs, while walking one, hitting one, and striking out three. Payton Lippert came in relief and finished out the final five innings. Lippert allowed six hits, four runs (two earned), walked three batters, and struck out two.
Head Coach Emily Russell had this to say about the weekend, "We played pretty well this weekend considering some illness and injury along with exams. We are looking forward to being 100 percent and finishing exams this week. Claudia [Jones] had a great weekend and we can use that kind of spark at this point of our season."
With the win in the first game yesterday Lee clinched a spot in the Gulf South Conference tournament. "Our postseason is a new season and all of the games are only important in preparing us for the next game. We have a good mindset and I'm excited to watch them compete," Russell added.
The tournament will be in Florence, Ala. starting on Thursday May 3. Lee is the eighth seed and will take on host and No. 1 seed North Alabama in the day one nightcap at 6:30 p.m. (EST). UNA comes into the tournament 29-3 in the GSC, and 42-5 overall, coming off a series win over Alabama Huntsville.
