Instead of getting rained out of its scheduled season-opening tournament in Monroe, La., the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga softball team went 2-2 in Clermont, Fla., this weekend. That was after two wins Friday.
The Mocs lost 8-0 to Liberty and 9-5 to Fairleigh Dickinson on Saturday in the Dot Richardson National Collegiate Softball lnvitational. Liberty won the 2017 postseason National Invitational Softball Championship tournament and allowed UTC only two hits in six innings - singles by Hayleigh Weissenbach and J.J. Hamill.
UTC was hurt by its own mistakes against Fairleigh Dickinson, which scored three runs in the fourth inning with the help of three walks and a hit batter and broke a 3-3 tie with six runs on just three hits in the fifth. There were two Mocs errors and two walks in that half-inning.
The Mocs kept fighting, though. In the seventh they scored two runs and loaded the bases with one out but ended the game with a strikeout and a groundout.
Aly Walker doubled and scored on Morgan Kazerooni's sacrifice fly in the second for UTC, which got later RBIs from Emma Sturdivant, Halie Williamson and Weissenbach. Ashley Conner was 1-for-1 and scored a run.
Soccer Mocs add six
UTC soccer coach Gavin McKinney announced six signees this past week: Adryan Darnell, Shelby Hash, Peyton Moore and Ashton Shields from Tennessee and twins Maggie and Samantha Shaw from Columbia, S.C.
"We feel our 2018 class is a very dynamic group," McKinney said in a release. "The balance they will bring to the squad is fantastic. Each signee is a proven winner at every level in which she has completed."
Darnell was "an intricate member," McKinney said, of nationally top-ranked Houston High in Germantown and has won a club state championship. The "top-notch attacking center" has earned All-South, All-America and multiple all-state honors.
Defender Hash was a two-year captain for Centennial High in Franklin and helped win a national title with the Tennessee Soccer Club, with whom she was a three-year captain.
Goalkeeper Shields was a two-time all-state selection for Arlington High and a two-time MVP for the Lobos Rush club program that included Darnell and Moore, a center back from Collierville who was two-time all-state for Briarcrest Christian, which won a state championship and finished second twice in her career.
The Shaw sisters between them were five-time all-staters for Drehen High, and their Lobos Rush club won three South Carolina state titles. Maggie is a defender, Samantha a center midfielder who can play back or up from there.