Gaston College's 14-game winning streak comes to an end in non-conference defeats

The rust of playing only two games in the last two weeks showed for Gaston College in a doubleheader sweep loss by 13-1 and 10-9 scores at Guilford College on Friday afternoon.

The defeats ended the Rhinos' winning streak at 14 games and dropped them to 36-8 overall entering Saturday's 1 p.m. doubleheader at Spartanburg Methodist that ends Gaston College's Region 10 regular season schedule.

"We looked about as bad as we've looked all year long in Game 1," said Rhinos coach Mike Steuerwald, whose team had a pair of doubleheaders cancelled this week before arranging Friday's doubleheader. "Part of it is losing a little bit of our rhythm with all the games we've had cancelled on us lately. We've only had six games in 22 days."

Gaston College clinched the Region 10 regular season title in its last outings - an April 14 doubleheader sweep of USC Sumter in its home finales.

On Friday, Rhinos pitchers walked 13 batters and Rhinos fielders committed nine errors that caused 10 of the 23 runs allowed to be unearned.

"In Game 2, we responded pretty well," Steuerwald said. "But you just can't commit errors and walk so many batters and expect to win."

Gaston College's 14-hit offense on Friday was led by Grace Manning (3 hits, 1 RBI), Tessa Hunt (2 hits, 2 RBIs) and Gracie Brown (2 hits, 1 RBI).

"It's such a rhythm sport, especially when you have a 13-player group like ours where we don't have enough players to do a scrimmage at practice," Steuerwald said. "From our end, it was good to get back out there today. And, hopefully, we can get back on track and play better tomorrow."

After Saturday's games, the Rhinos next week play at Louisburg in a Wednesday 3 p.m. doubleheader and an April 28 2 p.m doubleheader at Surry Community College; Louisburg is No. 2 in the current National Junior College Athletic Association Division II rankings and Surry is No. 6 in the Division III poll.