Wesleyan To Take on Piedmont In Opening Round of GSAC Softball Championship

The Wesleyan College softball team enters this weekend's Great South Athletic Conference Softball Championship ranked fifth and will take on the fourth seeded Piedmont Lions.

Wesleyan is coming off a sweep of GSAC rival Agnes Scott on Tuesday, where in two games, the Pioneers combined for 36 hits, only four strike outs and one error. An offense that has at times been stagnant found its rhythm, racking up six doubles to go along with a two-run home run by sophomore Belle Thomas.

The Pioneers (5-24, 4-8 GSAC) are hoping to maintain their offensive dominance as they head into this weekend's GSAC Championship, which is being hosted by LaGrange College and runs from April 24-26. They will take on a Piedmont (12-14, 6-6 GSAC) team who was runner-up in the 2008 GSAC Softball Championship but has since had some trouble adjusting to the losses of several valuable players since last season.

In their only meeting this season, Piedmont swept a doubleheader from the Pioneers that was played in Demorest, Ga. The Lions won 7-1 and 7-2, pounding out 20 hits to Wesleyan's 15. Although they were able to put the bat on the ball, the Pioneers could not find a way to push runs across the plate and had six critical errors that put the games out of reach.

Wesleyan will be looking to senior DaLin Gillis to set the tone for the Pioneers this weekend both at the plate and from the mound. Offensively, Gillis leads the team with a 0.302 batting average and is second in hits (26) and RBIs (11). On the mound, she has an ERA of 3.65, which is sixth among GSAC pitchers.

The Wesleyan vs. Piedmont matchup is the opening game of the 2009 Championship beginning Friday morning at 9:00am. Should the Pioneers win that game, they would take on #1 LaGrange at 3:30pm. If they lose to Piedmont in the first game, they would then play at 10:00am on Saturday morning.