Lancer Field Report: Softball takes care of business, Baseball struggles

A weekly look at Longwood Softball and Baseball.

Softball (35–14, 17–4)

Kathy Riley’s squad concluded the Big South regular season this weekend with a big time sweep over Gardner-Webb. The sweep was VERY important to Longwood as it not only locked in a top two finish in the Big South, but it also put tremendous pressure on Liberty.

The Flames will conclude their Big South campaign next week against Winthrop and will need to sweep the Eagles for the Big South crown and number one seed. If Liberty trips up just once then Longwood is the conference champion.

Longwood also swept a doubleheader against Norfolk State this week and had a rain out against Duke. The rain out actually helps out the Lancers as they’ll now play next Saturday in Farmville and it eliminates the weird two week gap that the Big South created in-between games.

Last Week: W 5–2, W 11–2 at Norfolk State, W 7–1, W 9–7 (10), W 6–2 at Gardner-Webb

This Week: 5/5 vs Duke (DH)

Baseball (14–28, 7–14)

The bad news? Longwood went 1–3 this week. The good news? Longwood was at least competitive in the series against Liberty being out-scored 20–18 and taking one game from the Flames. The win at least kept Longwood one game ahead of Presbyterian and tied for the 7/8 slot in the Big South Tournament. Ryan Mau shuffled around the rotation a bit this week, in hopes of maybe just stealing one game from the series, but it didn’t seem to much matter.

Longwood will take a week off of Big South play this week and will instead hit the road for match ups against Norfolk State and Navy. A pivotal series against Presbyterian then looms. Longwood will likely have to win their second Big South series of the year to get into the Big South Tournament.

Last Week: L 10–2 at VCU, L 9–6, W 8–6, L 5–4 (11)
This Week: 5/1 at Norfolk State, 5/5–6 at Navy