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FARMVILLE, Va. – On April 3, Longwood softball sat in last place in the Big South standings. It was unfamiliar territory for a program that had won back-to-back Big South Championships and was pegged in the preseason poll to win it all again in 2017.
 
Six weeks later, Longwood pulled off the improbable and hoisted the Big South Championship trophy once again.
 
Capping an incredible late-season turnaround, No. 3 seed Longwood toppled No. 1 seed Liberty 4-2 in the winner-take-all championship game Sunday at Lancer Field to secure the program's third straight Big South Championship and fourth in five years as a member of the conference. Big South Tournament MVP Elizabeth McCarthy (14-8) delivered the final pitch, capping a complete-game, shutdown performance against the Big South's top offense to upset the top-seeded Flames (38-22) in front of a strong Longwood home crowd.
 
The win punctuated a dominant run for the Lancers (28-27), who overcame more than a half-season's worth of struggles to win 13 of their past 15 games, including four of five in the five-day Big South Championship tournament. Hosting the tournament for the first time in Farmville, the Lancers beat regular season champion Liberty twice and overcame a 9-3 loss to the Flames Saturday night that forced Sunday's winner-take-all showdown.
 
"I can't even describe how special it is to win at home," McCarthy said. "We've had so much support from everyone around campus and the town, especially leading up to and throughout this tournament. This was a special way for me to go out here on my home field and it's a great day to be a Lancer."  
 
McCarthy used her trademark craftiness on the mound, holding the Big South's top offense to just five hits and two runs over seven innings. The win capped a workhorse performance for the four-time All-Big South first-team selection, who tossed 24.2 of the team's 35.0 innings in the five-day championship run en route to her first tournament MVP award.
 
Kaylynn Batten joined McCarthy on the All-Tournament team, as well as senior Justina Augustine and Karleigh Donovan. Together, Batten and Donovan came up with clutch hit after clutch hit throughout the tournament, combining for 12 hits, nine runs and nine RBI. After moving from right field to shortstop for Longwood's last 21 games and scoring six runs on four hits, Augustine caps her senior campaign with All-Tournament team honors as well.
 
"Today is probably the biggest moment during my career here," Augustine said. "Winning a third straight Big South Championship in front of all of my friends and family is an amazing feeling."
 
The Lancers will now await placement in their third straight NCAA Regional, which they will learn during the NCAA Selection Show this evening at 10 p.m. on ESPN2. Continuing the hometown championship excitement, the team will host a watch party at Buffalo Wild Wing in Farmville.
 
"I'm very humbled by the position we've been in to experience as much success as we've had the last four or five years," said Longwood head coach Kathy Riley. "This time around, we came in as the underdog and were able to come out on top in the end.
 
"I think we're a program that a lot of people can look up to, because we're a blue collar, hard-working team that each year tries to start over and get as good as we possibly can," Riley said. "We're not always the most gifted, but we're certainly one of the most mentally-tough groups you could be around."
 
With that mental toughness to grind out a third straight Big South Championships and fourth in the last five seasons, Longwood has turned itself into a mid-major power. The Lancers become the fourth program to win three straight Big South Championships and the first to do so since Texas A&M-Corpus Christi from 2003-05, while also joining UNC Greensboro (1994-97) and Winthrop (1989-91) to win three straight Big South Championships and the first to do so on its home field since Radford won at Radford Softball Stadium in 2009. 
 
Sunday's heroics extended beyond McCarthy, as the Lancers spotted their ace a 4-1 lead by the end of the third inning courtesy of a Jessica Smith second inning double and a three-run third inning highlighted by Jordan Clark and Kaylynn Batten scoring on an error.
 
From there, Longwood's defense was able to hold strong, with McCarthy giving up just a sixth inning run on an RBI double from Kaitlin McFarland, as the Flames only had a pair of hits through the final four innings.

"This team has been resilient all season," Riley said. "To go through some of the things we went through in the middle of the year and come out at the end of the tunnel is certainly a nice reward for our girls."
 
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