WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – UNCW won its first CAA Softball Championship with a 10-2 win over Elon University. The team improves to 32-13 after the victory with an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
The Seahawks will take on the Clemson Tigers in the Clemson Regional, which will also feature Louisiana and Auburn.
The first pitch between the Seahawks and the Tigers will be at noon on Friday.
Dozens of fans, players, and UNCW staff gathered at Walk-On’s on Sunday night to watch history being made, as this is the team’s first NCAA tournament appearance.
Head Coach Kristy Norton says, it didn’t come as a surprise to her.
“It actually was a practice and Diego had just joined us on staff and we went out to the bullpen, and he said, Coach, we’re gonna win it all,” she said. “And from that day forward, it’s like every rep we took was to get to regionals.”
Junior infielder Mary Sobataka, who also hit a grand slam in Saturday’s game, says they’re ready to compete.
“We competed in the ACC, we played against UNC, we played against NC State close games,” she said. “We can compete with those teams. And we know that. So that’s our momentum going into this weekend.”
Emily Winstead, Kara Hammock, Morgan Britt, and Janel Gamache were selected to the CAA-All-Tournament team. Winstead was also named Most Outstanding Performer.
The Seahawks got on the board in the fourth inning with Morgan Britt’s first career homerun. The team then scored eight runs in the bottom of the fifth inning.
UNCW is the first #3 seed to win the CAA Softball Championship in the history of the tournament, and the first team since 2018 to win on an opponent’s field.
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