Carson-Newman drops opening NCAA Tournament game against No. 8 Francis Marion
FLORENCE, S.C. – In its first NCAA Tournament game since 2023, Carson-Newman (40-13) dropped its opening game to the two-seed and hosts Francis Marion, 2-1, on Thursday afternoon at the Francis Marion Softball Stadium. It marked the first meeting between the two since the Patriots eliminated the Eagles back in 2023 during their last NCAA Tournament appearance.
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VIDEO: Michael Graves Postgame Press Conference
FLORENCE, S.C. – In its first NCAA Tournament game since 2023, Carson-Newman (40-13) dropped its opening game to the two-seed and hosts Francis Marion, 2-1, on Thursday afternoon at the Francis Marion Softball Stadium. It marked the first meeting between the two since the Patriots eliminated the Eagles back in 2023 during their last NCAA Tournament appearance.
The Patriots took an early lead in the first inning, before the Eagles knotted it up in the fourth. However, Maddy Golka was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, giving Francis Marion the edge it needed to take the opening game.
Head coach Michael Graves was not pleased with how C-N performed overall and felt they left runs out there.
"We had multiple opportunities to score more runs than just the one we got. I thought we came off maybe a little nervous in the first inning with our younger kids," Graves said. "Didn't think we played too good overall, hopefully we come out better tomorrow."
Both pitchers, Alyssa Poston from Francis Marion and C-N's Atiana Stamper (Knoxville, Tenn.), threw complete games. The teams ended even at seven hits, but Graves voiced his frustration with his team's approach at the plate in his postgame press conference.
"[Poston] constantly threw us outside where the wind's blowing straight out, but we wanted to try and pull the ball into a 25-mile-an-hour wind blowing straight left to right and just pop the ball up all day," Graves said. "We kept talking about it in between innings and kept doing the same thing. Until that fixes and they understand we know what we're talking about, it's not going to get any better."
Poston pitched all seven innings, allowing just one run on seven hits while striking out four and walking no one. Stamper on the side for C-N tossed six innings, surrendering two runs with a strikeout and two walks, the least strikeouts she's had in an outing since April 9th against Catawba.
"Poston's a really good pitcher, her stats show that, but I think we had scouted her and done enough to figure out what she was going to try and do to us. We talked about it with the girls for several days, practiced yesterday, worked like a charm, and then we came out today and did the exact opposite of what we worked on," Graves said. "They did a good job of making Atiana throw strikes. They were hitting on 3-0 or 3-1 counts, and we're swinging at pretty much everything she throws, and that's not what I want a team of mine to do."
In the top of the first, the Eagles threatened with two on but were unable to score. Francis Marion shook off the rust right away in its first game in 18 days, as Conference Carolinas Player of the Year Madalyn White tripled to lead off the bottom of the first and scored on an error, 1-0.
The Patriots looked for more in the second, loading the bases, but Stamper navigated out of the jam to keep it at a one-run lead.
In the fourth, Carson-Newman got its offense going with two outs, a single from Sarah Walker (Mills River, N.C.) and Shelby Armstrong (Knoxville, Tenn.) was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Then it was senior Abbi Martin (Gadsden, Ala.) with a base hit to left to drive in Anne Marie Richards (Spring Hill, Tenn.), 1-1.
An inning later, the Eagles looked for more as Addie Saunders (Radford, Va.) led off with a double and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt from Macauley Bailey (Cross Plains, Tenn.), putting the go-ahead run 60 feet away with one out. However, an infield foul-out and fly out helped Poston escape trouble.
Francis Marion used the momentum from the top half to take the lead in the bottom of the fifth. An infield single and a double placed early pressure, before a hit batter with two strikes made the bases loaded, and then Maddy Golka was hit by a pitch, the Patriots took the lead, 2-1, and didn't surrender it.
In the seventh, C-N got the tying run on base, but were unable to bring it across.
Carson-Newman will be back in action tomorrow, squaring off with Anderson for the fifth time this season. The two sides split in the regular season before going toe-to-toe in the SAC Championship last weekend. The Eagles took the first game, 5-2, before the Trojans used a three-run seventh to walk it off in an elimination game, 9-8.
Anderson dropped its opening contest of the NCAA Tournament to Lenoir-Rhyne, 2-1, on Thursday evening.
First pitch between Carson-Newman and Anderson is slated for 4:00 p.m. at the Francis Marion Softball Stadium. Fans can watch the game on NCAA.com, listen to it on cneagles.com/live or watch the In The Booth cam on Carson-Newman's Eagle Sports Network YouTube Channel.
