FLORENCE, SC – Graduate student right-hander
Jenna Walling tossed a three-hit shutout in game one and drove in seven runs with a pair of three-run homers as 19th-ranked Francis Marion University swept a Conference Carolinas doubleheader from Ferrum College, Saturday (March 21) in softball action. FMU won the first game 10-0 in six innings and the second contest 4-2.
Francis Marion (26-9, 10-4) will play a conference twinbill at UNC Pembroke on Tuesday at 3 p.m., the start of four consecutive road doubleheaders for FMU.
In Saturday's opener before a stadium record crowd of 413 on Alumni Day and Pee Dee Boys and Girls Club Day sponsored by Pepsi, Walling (17-6) blanked Ferrum on three hits, while fanning 10. Walling continues to lead NCAA Division II in wins, innings pitched, and strikeouts.
At the plate, the Johns Island, S.C., native was 2-for-4 with six runs batted in. Senior left fielder
Anderson Thrower was 3-for-4 with two runs scored, while junior designated player
McKenzie Jewell was a perfect 3-for-3 with two RBIs and a run scored.
The Patriots gave Walling all the runs she needed in the first inning by scoring six times. Senior shortstop
Madalyn White walked, Thrower singled, and Jewell lined a run-scoring single to left center field. Walling followed with a three-run blast over the center field wall. Five batters later, senior center fielder
Mikaela Goss shot a 2-run double to left field as FMU batted around.
Francis Marion upped its advantage to 7-0 on a sacrifice fly by Jewell in the fourth.
The Patriots ended the game via the 8-run mercy rule when Walling launched her second three-run homer, this one to left center, in the bottom of the sixth.
Ferrum righty Chloe Constantino (3-8) took the loss.
Patriot freshman righthander
Laini Kosinski (3-0) earned the win in game two. The Manning native limited the Panthers to only four hits, and both runs she allowed were unearned.
Walling came in to get the final two outs, stranding a pair of base runners, to record her second save of 2026 and the sixth of her career – tying her with Shelby Kelley (2015-16) for second all-time in program history.
White was 2-for-2 with a run scored at the top of the FMU line-up.
FMU tallied three runs in the second frame as Goss plated a run with an RBI grounder and Thrower bounced a two-run single up the middle.
The Panthers (8-20, 1-11) rallied with a pair of runs in the third inning, the result of two FMU miscues, to pull within 3-2.
The Patriots added an insurance run in the last half of the fifth on a Walling RBI-single through the right side. In the process, she extended her streak of safely reaching base to 12 games.
Right-hander Emily Wood (3-6) took the loss in game two.
