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April 29, 2000
2000 Atlantic Coast Conference Softball Championships
GAME ONE
Virginia 7, Georgia Tech 6 (9 innings)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — No. 4 seed Virginia came from behind to defeat No. 5seed Georgia Tech, 7-6, in nine innings, in Game One of the 2000 AtlanticCoast Conference Championships, Saturday afternoon at the Seminole SoftballComplex. The Cavaliers, who now advance to Game 3 vs. No. 1 seed NorthCarolina, improved to 25-34 while the Yellow Jackets fell to 25-32.
Georgia Tech jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first inning off of four hits.Lauren Schwartz and Heather Sumrow led off the inning with back-to-backsingles while Lindsay Wood’s base hit scored one run and Ellen Styer drovein two others with a single to center field. Wood went on to score on anerror. The Cavaliers responded with two runs of their own in the first asKristen Dennis belted a two-out home run to left center, scoring leadoffhitter Meaghan Young, who reached on a base hit.
The Yellow Jackets extended their lead to three with another run in thefourth. Erin Hawley tripled to right field, scoring Schwartz, who led offthe inning with a base hit down the middle. The Cavaliers inched closerwith two runs in the fifth as Young tripled to right field scoring CorinneGood and Stephanie Calhoun, who each had singles. Georgia Tech picked anunearned run in the sixth to go up 6-4, but could not hold on to its lead.Virginia tied the game in the bottom of the seventh. With two on and oneout, Amy Peay drove in two runs with a double to left center and the gamewent to extra innings. Neither team recorded hits in the eighth inning andthen in the bottom of the ninth Kelly McCabe led off with a double to rightcenter and scored on a throwing error by Tech third baseman Jamie Frost. UVArelief pitcher Chrissy Quinn, who pitched the final 5.2 innings and earnedher fourth-straight victory to improve to 11-11, shut down the YellowJackets offensively. She did not give up a hit and walked just one as theYellow Jackets scored one unearned run in the game’s final five innings.Young, Peay and Dennis each had two RBI for the Cavs, who had 10 hits as ateam.
“It’s a great win for us especially since we did not play well,”Virginia Head Coach Cheryl Sprangel said. “But we’ll take it. We dugourselves a big hole, but it shows how much character we have to be able tocome back like we did.”
Georgia Tech’s Schwartz and Sumrow combined for four of the YellowJackets’ seven hits. Pitcher Jamie Smith went the distance and fell to 14-17.
“I was very pleased with our offense, ” Georgia Tech Head Coach KateMadden said. “Six runs is enough runs to win a ball game. Our pitchingand defense was not as strong as it has been and that’s what I amdisappointed about.”
| GAME ONE | 123 | 456 | 789 | R | H | E | |
| Georgia Tech | 400 | 101 | 000 | – | 6 | 7 | 2 |
| Virginia | 200 | 020 | 201 | – | 7 | 10 | 3 |
WP – Chrissy Quinn (11-11)
LP – Jamie Smith (14-17)
* UVa right fielder Meaghan Young broke her own single season school recordby collecting her 95th total base of the season with a two-run triple toright center in the fifth inning. Young’s former total base mark was 94 inthe 1998 season.