Sun Belt Conference Weekly News and Notes (Sun Belt Championship)
Championship Central
2014 Sun Belt Conference Championship Bracket

HIGHLIGHTS
POST GAME PRESS CONFERENCE

Lafayette, La. – The No. 2 seed South Alabama Jaguars dominated en route to an 8-1 victory on Thursday afternoon as play at the 2014 Sun Belt Conference Softball Championship continued from Lamson Park in Lafayette, La.

Thursday’s games marked the beginning of double elimination play at the 2014 Softball Championship. South Alabama (39-11) advances to face the winner of the No. 1 seed UL Lafayette vs. No. 4 seed WKU matchup taking place at Lamson Park at 5 p.m. on Thursday night. UL Monroe (24-26) takes on the losing team from the UL Lafayette vs. WKU matchup.

The Jags used two big innings in the second and third to build an 8-1 lead that held throughout the game. South Alabama pushed across five runs, all unearned, in the second inning. The Jags loaded the bases before sophomore Emily Messer delivered a single to left field scoring junior Gwen Jones. Back-to-back UL Monroe errors gave South Alabama four more runs to push the lead to 5-0 for the Jags after two innings.

South Alabama junior Farish Beard finished just two strikeouts shy of her career high, logging 13 for the third time this season and first in her last 16 appearances. The junior gave up just a pair of hits on the day. Beard took the win to improve to 21-5 this season.

UL Monroe redshirt senior Samantha Hamby took the loss to fall to 16-16 this season.

The double elimination round continues on Friday morning at 11 a.m. Two games follow the early game at Lamson Park with the winner of the 11 a.m. game advancing to play at 5 p.m. against the losing team of the 2 p.m. matchup.

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