INSTITUTE, W.V.- After opening the NCAA Tournament with victory for the third year in a row, West Chester will now turn its attention to its next NCAA Tournament foe in Winston Salem State who advanced to the second round by virtue of defeating host institution West Virginia State earlier on Thursday by a final score of 3-0 while West Chester downed Gannon 8-2.
West Chester raced out to an early five-run lead after the first two innings of play as the Golden Rams scored three runs in the first inning thanks to a two-RBI double from Courtney Stump (Kutztown, Pa./Kutztown) before coming around to score on an RBI single from Jaime Klemas (South Brunswick, N.J./South Brunswick). In the second inning, West Chester saw its lead grow when Annamarie Hartman (Phoenix, Ariz./Xavier College Prep) recorded a two-RBI double to left center, which platedEmily Kim (Bel Air, Md./C. Milton Wright) and Elizabeth Moore (Northampton, Pa./Northampton) to give the Golden Rams a commanding 5-0 lead. Gannon answered back with two runs of its own during the third, which cut the deficit to 5-2. During the fourth inning of play, West Chester added another run via an RBI single from Maseth, which plated Bri Garber (Willow Street, Pa./Lampeter Strasburg) who had reached on a single earlier in the inning to give the Golden Rams a strong 6-2 lead. Stump followed this up with an RBI single to score Maseth and give West Chester a 7-2 lead. Klemas followed this up with an RBI single of her own to drive in McCollester from second to give the Golden Rams an 8-2 lead heading to the fifth.Maegen Kavanagh (Easton, Pa./Easton) was impressive this afternoon as she went the distance surrendering nine hits and just two runs to earn the Opening Round victory over Gannon.
This victory improves Kavanagh to 9-4 on the year while also dropping her ERA on the season to just under three at 2.99. As a team, West Chester is now 35-19 overall and 9-11 in neutral site games. Additionally, West Chester is now an impressive 16-2 when scoring 6-9 runs in a game and the Golden Rams 28-8 when scoring first.
Winston Salem State enters play coming off a 3-0 upset victory over second-seed West Virginia State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament earlier Thursday afternoon. Winston Salem State scored all three of its runs during the top of the first courtesy of an RBI single from Alleigh Himes before a two-RBI double from Shauntaja Dedecker extended the Rams lead to 3-0 in the early stages of the contest. From this point forward, the Rams relied on a stellar defensive effort and a complete game, four-hit shutout from Erica Davis to carry the visitors to an impressive opening round upset victory over West Virginia State.
Davis has been the Rams top option inside the circle in 2019 as she has pitched to a record of 15-7 with an ERA of just 2.51 while Tia Robinson has been a solid second option for Winston Salem State as she enters play with a record 15-3 and an ERA of 3.73. Destiny Koonts is also an option inside the circle for the Rams as she has pitched to a record of 3-1 with an ERA of 4.77 to provide depth in the Ram rotation.
Offensively, Daijah Chambers has been the offensive leader for the Rams as she enters play with a stellar .460 batting average with 58 hits, 43 runs, 44 RBI, and nine home runs. Chambers is one of three Rams to bat above .400 on the year and impressively she is not the teams offensive leader as Erica Davis currently possesses the top batting average on the team with a .473 batting average with 53 hits and 31 runs scored and RBI on the season. Destiny Snipes is the other Ram to bat above .400 this season as she enters play batting .435 on the season. Dedecker provides the power in the Ram lineup as she currently sits atop the team in home runs with 10 long balls on the season while still recording a batting average of .348.
On the other side of the bracket, West Virginia State and Gannon must now win four games in the next two days if they are to rally and capture the Pod Championship while West Chester is just one win away from advancing back to the Pod Championship game for the third year in a row in need of just one additional victory to advance to Super Regionals for the third season in a row as well.
