Georgia State Softball Sweeps Furman

When softball coach Roger Kincaid met with his staff before the start of conference play in the Colonial Athletic Association, he had a couple goals in mind for his team he thought might help them be successful.

After meeting with the team, he realized the team’s goals were almost identical to the goals he laid out with his staff: sweep all home conference series and win all conference series on the road.

So far, so good for the Panthers who have lived up to the goals.  During its last league road series at Towson March 26-27, Georgia State took two-of-three from the Tigers. On Wednesday, the team swept Furman in a doubleheader at Bob Heck Field, winning 4-1 in Game 1 and shutting out the Paladins in the nightcap, 8-0 after six innings.

With the win, Georgia State improves to 21-16 and are tied for second place in the CAA at 5-1.

“We have a lot of goals as a team,” said third baseman Chelsea Sparks. “We always want to win home conference games. We want to score first. We want to make the routine plays. We want to communicate through seven innings. Today, the coaches challenged us to score as many runs as we could.”

And score they did. They blew the game open in the third inning of the second game scoring three runs. They ended the game with eight runs off of 18 hits for a grand total of 24 hits and 12 runs on the day. Georgia State scored in a variety of ways during the game, grounders up the middle, deep balls to the outfield, and they ran the bases well.

But their defense had them in the game just as much as their offense. Freshman Kaitlyn Medlam (6-1) and McCall Langford combined in the second game to only allow two hits. The Panthers have four pitchers on their staff, and they aren’t afraid to use all of them. Erin Collins is tied for first in the nation in saves with seven.

“We have four pitchers and we use all of them,” Kincaid said. “It’s a true pitching staff. They don’t care who starts and who relieves and who closes. They’ve really embraced their roles.”

The pitching staff of four lowered its team ERA to 2.26, including 0.82 with eight saves during Georgia State’s 12-3 streak according to the sports information department.

“Our pitchers have goals too,” said Emily Whitaker who had three hits in four at-bats in the second game. “They don’t want to allow more than three runs a game, and no home runs. They always want to get strikes early in the count and maintain their composure.”

Ahead 3-0 heading into the fourth inning, the Panthers extended the lead with four more runs in the frame. The team was a bevy of energy the entire game, hooting and hollering loudly from the dugout whether they were on offense or defense.

“We’re young, we only have two seniors,” Kincaid said. “They are extremely enthusiastic and when they get like that, they are hard to stop. When they’re on a streak like we are right now, they’re hard to stop.”

The Panthers have won five straight and 12 out of their last 15. Both Whitaker and Sparks said the mental game is part of what has made them so strong this year.

“My mental game has been really strong this year,” Sparks said. “Coming back from an ACL tear last year has really prepared me for this season. I feel like I’m a lot tougher mentally.”

Despite being such a young team that will only graduate two, Kindcaid said his seniors, Tiffany Bess and Lauren Jones, are a huge part of the team’s success.

“They definitely draw strength from the seniors,” he said. “They look toward them and they do a great job as leaders. They’ve been here four years so they’ve been through everything. They’ve been big for us.”

Georgia State next travels to Philadelphia for a weekend series versus Drexel, April 9-10. The team returns home to face Kennesaw State on April 13 followed by a weekend tilt with Delaware April 16-17.