Saturday, April 5 was one of the busiest days the Furman Paladins have had all year. The day had beautiful weather, and the campus was bustling with events, with the Paladins, both men and women, competing in seven different sports.
To begin with the Lady Paladins’ team performances, the women’s tennis team, ranked 64th in the country and currently sitting atop the Southern Conference standings, dominated Georgia Southern 6-1 in Statesboro on Saturday. The Paladins swept the doubles matches and then took five of the six singles matches to extend their winning streak to seven games as they enter the final week of the regular season.
The team now owns an impressive 14-5 overall record with an even better 7-0 record in SoCon play. After a matchup in Cary, N.C., against Western Carolina, the Paladins will return home for a final match against Davidson before postseason play begins.
On the links the Lady Paladins turned in an impressive performance as well. The team finished in 9th place at the Ole Miss Rebel Intercollegiate in Oxford, Miss. Freshman Taylor Totland had a career best 69 (-3) in the final round on her way to a +3 overall, 14th place individual, finish.
The team finished the three-round tournament at a combined +26, 19 strokes behind first place Georgia Regents University-Augusta, who had the second lowest team score in the tournament’s history. The Paladins final round score of 293 was the team’s best round of the spring. The Paladins will compete in the SoCon Championship from April 13-15 in Hilton Head, S.C.
The Paladin softball team completed a doubleheader sweep of UNC-Greensboro Saturday on the back of senior Hannah Pace’s three-run walkoff home run. The sweep brings the Paladins’ record over .500 to 19-18, with a 6-4 conference record. More impressive is that the team is 8-2 in home games.
Game one was an extra-innings thriller ended with a bang when Pace blasted a three-run homer off the scoreboard. The team mustered 12 hits en route to the 5-2 victory. The second game was highlighted by Alex Sappington’s first career complete game. The Paladins battled back from a pair of two-run deficits to complete the sweep with a 6-5 victory.
On the men’s side, baseball fell to Davidson 10-5 at Latham Stadium. Davidson is having a strong season with a 19-8 record, while the Paladins are struggling at 11-20 through Saturday. Pitcher Jacques de Gruy fell to 1-3 on the year after surrendering seven runs in only two innings. You can read more about the entire series in Forest Stulting’s coverage of the baseball team.
Men’s lacrosse came close to the program’s first ever victory on Saturday. The Paladins hosted the Richmond Spiders in our second Atlantic Sun matchup of the year. The Spiders mustered seven fourth quarter goals en route to increasing their record to 3-8 while the Paladins fell to 0-10.
Despite the loss, ten goals is the most scored in a single game by the Paladins in program history. Furman entered the fourth quarter with an 8-6 lead but were unable to hold on as the Spiders netted seven goals and won the matchup 13-10.
Furman’s next two games, against Virginia Military Institute and Mercer, are both on the road, before the Paladins return home for their final regular season matchup against Jacksonville April 26.
The men’s tennis team, ranked no. 75, fell to no. 49 Elon 6-1 in the Paladins’ first SoCon loss of the year. The match took place in the Mickel Tennis Center on Furman’s campus, where the team will conclude the regular season with senior day on Friday against Wofford.
The Paladins are 12-8, with a 6-1 SoCon record. Freshman Juan Sheppard defeated Jordan Kaufman in a singles matchup for Furman’s only point of the matchup. The combination of Joel Cook and Matt Browne also won one of the doubles matches, but Elon took the other two, giving them the lone point from the doubles matches.
Saturday’s sporting events wrapped up with the track and field team’s performance in the High Point (N.C.) VertKlasse Meeting. Juniors William Ivey, fourth in the 800 meter, and Rachel Gilbert, fifth in the 400 meter, paced the Paladins on the day. Furman track and field will host the Blue Shoes Invitational on campus Saturday, April 12 — a very exciting event, recommended to those who have never attended.