For immediate release – 4/25/2015 - #442
Freshmen Push LC Softball to the ODAC Finals with 2-1 win over Emory & Henry

SALEM, VA – On a team with seven seniors playing important roles, it was freshmen Conner English and Leslie Bourgeois who lifted the second-seeded Lynchburg College softball team to a 2-1 victory Saturday against Emory & Henry College and into the finals of the 2015 Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Tournament.

The Hornets got on the scoreboard in the first inning. Jessi Hall led off with a single and stole second. She advanced to third on a Danielle Powell single and Bourgeois lifted a sacrifice fly to center field to put LC ahead 1-0.

The Wasps countered to tie the score at one with a solo home run off the bat of Caley Hodge in the fourth, and the score remained 1-1 until the bottom of the seventh.

In LC's last chance at victory before extra innings, Bourgeois led off with a triple to right field. Logan Walker hit a sacrifice fly into left field to plate pinch runner Jessica Murphy and end the contest.

English won her second game of the tournament, allowing just two hits and three walks with five strikeouts in a complete game. LC improves to 31-12 with the win.

Roxanne Hillman was the tough-luck loser for E&H (26-12), scattering five hits with no walks over 6.1 innings.

Only LC and Randolph-Macon College remain alive in the eight-team, double elimination tournament. Since R-MC defeated LC 6-2 earlier Saturday, the Hornets will have to defeat the Yellow Jackets twice Sunday to claim the program's seventh conference title and stake claim to the ODAC's automatic berth into the NCAA Division III Tournament.

The first game is slated to begin at 1 p.m. Sunday, with game two at 3:30 p.m., if necessary.

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