Box Score Burlington, N.C. – #2 seed Mt. Olive College required extra innings to beat #7 seed Erskine College 7 to 6 (8 innings) in the opening round of the Conference Carolinas Softball Championship Tournament at Springwood Park.

Erskine jumped all over Mt. Olive ace Carly White, scoring five runs in the first inning.  After the first three Erskine batters reached base safely, senior Morgan Purcell (Duncan, SC, Byrnes High School) drove in two runs with a double and Ashlyn Hicks (Caycee, SC, Brookland-Cayce High School) followed an rbi single.  Shortstop Whitney Brown (West Columbia, SC, Airport High School)capped off the scoring with a two-out single to score the final two runs of the inning.

White held the Fleet scoreless through the next five frames allowing her teammates to scratch their way back into the game scoring at least one run in four of the next six innings to tie the game at 5 to 5.  Poor defensive play by the Fleet assisted Mt. Olive in scoring their first two runs.  Mt. Olive scored one run in their half of the first after Kalie Smith hit a double and later scored on two wild pitches.  In the next inning, Kelsey Akers scored on a Fleet throwing error to trim Erskine’s lead to 5 to 2.  Mt. Olive scored two runs in the fifth and another in the sixth to tie game at 5 to 5.

In the top of the seventh, Erskine put themselves within three outs of the upset with an rbi single by Purcell.

With two outs, Mt. Olive’s Erin Brogan hit a single up the middle to plate the tying run and push the game into extra innings.

Playing international tie-breaking rules, the Trojans got another break on another Erskine miscue to score the winning run.

With the loss, Erskine falls into the loser’s bracket and plays Queens University at 2:00 p.m.  #4 Queens University lost to #5 Coker 7 to 4 earlier in the day.