Esatern Wayne softball wins opener

By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on February 26, 2008 2:51 PM

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For Eastern Wayne's softball team season openers don't get much better.

In Goldsboro's case learning opportunities don't get much greater.

The Warriors pounded out 28 runs, didn't allow a hit and coasted to a 28-0 victory over the visiting Cougars in a shortened 4 1/2-inning affair on Monday afternoon.

Eastern Wayne (1-0 overall) pushed across eight runs in the first inning and 13 more in the second to put the game out of reach in a hurry.

Casey Mitchell's inside-the-park home run in the first ignited a Warriors' offense that scored with ease against a still developing Goldsboro squad.

Mitchell finished the day with six hits and seven RBI. Brianna Williams added five hits. Da'Shonique Bristow and Miranda Smith both had four hits.

"I thought we hit the ball very well," Eastern Wayne head coach Tony Parrish said. "We've been working a lot on the middle and the back side, and that's where a lot of there hits were. My challenege to them was to stay focused and do what we do."

Starting pitcher Lani Fricks worked three scoreless innings, striking out eight and walking two. Fricks gave way to Carrie Adams who struck out the side in the fourth. Lisa Hollandsworth tossed a scoreless fifth.

Goldsboro struggled offensively reaching base just three times, all of which came on walks.

"I was very pleased to be able to get three pitchers in," Parrish said. "Lani and Carrie are our one and two, and they're going to get the majority of the work. Both of them threw the ball well today."

Finding room for improvement while continuing to grow as a program remain Parrish's focus.

"I told the girls it doesn't matter what the competition is you've still got to play up to your potential," Parrish said. "We're a struggling program, we're trying to turn around everything here. There's nothing that we haven't done that we can't fix.

"We're not so much into getting ahead of ourselves we've got to do the simple things well."