FARMVILLE, Va. – After a 4-1 loss to Charleston Southern in Saturday's season opener, head coach Dr. Megan Brown said Longwood was on the wrong side of "a game of inches" a few too many times.
 
Sunday the Lancers made sure they were on the right side.
 
In a series-winning doubleheader sweep over conference rival Charleston Southern, Longwood (23-24, 12-6 Big South) backed two strong appearances in the circle from ace Sydney Backstrom with timely hitting and sure-handed defense to pull out a pair of nail-biters, 2-0 and 3-2 Lancer Field.
 
The wins avenged a series-opening 4-1 loss to the Buccaneers (11-24, 6-15 Big South) Saturday afternoon, clinched Longwood's fifth Big South series win this season, and put the third-place Lancers closer to securing a spot in the four-team Big South Championship tournament.
 
"I'm really proud of our fight," said Brown, whose Lancers have now won three consecutive Big South rubber games.
 
"They came out with a great mentality this morning, they made good adjustments in pregame and came out ready to go. We had a couple miscues throughout the day but I was really proud of our recovery and our ability to reset, which is such a vital tool as we get deeper into the season. We fought throughout, had good at bats and worked together as an offense, which is our strength. I'm pleased with their response."
 
Backstrom (18-11) won both games Sunday, throwing her Big South-leading fifth shutout of the season in the opener before starting and finishing a 3.2-inning performance in the one-run finale. The reigning and four-time Big South Pitcher of the Week, Backstrom allowed just one run on six hits for the day while striking out 12 in her 10.2 innings.
 
The lone run Backstrom allowed came in her first inning of work in game two – after a three-hit shutout in game one – when Buccaneer leadoff batter Brooklyn Brewington scored on a wild pitch. However, Backstrom responded with a scoreless second inning before giving way to Angelina Sherba – who fired 3.0 scoreless frames in the middle innings – and returned to navigate a one-out jam in the sixth and close out the series-clinching victory with a scoreless seventh.
 
Longwood backed her performance with a defensive effort that included just two errors while converting 30 of the doubleheader's 42 outs in the field. Backstrom made both of those errors but her defense bailed her out each time, making those baserunners two of the 14 Charleston Southern stranded on the day.
 
At the plate, shortstop Kasey Carr and second baseman Destiny Martinez – both fifth-year starters and graduate students – delivered game-winning RBI. Martinez had the first of those with a two-out, two-run single in the second inning of game one, while Carr followed with a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the sixth inning of game two, which followed a leadoff triple by cleanup hitter Lauren Taylor.
 
Those wins improved Longwood to 12-5 in games decided by two runs or fewer this season, including 6-0 in Big South play.
 
"We talk a lot about everything being a learning process, even though the learning isn't always as pleasant as we would like it to be," Brown said. "These are games that grow us and help us become better. We've had a lot of days that were tough, and we're learning and starting to make those adjustments."
 
Game One: Lancers Ride Backstrom's 3-Hit Shutout to 2-0 Win, Even Series in Opener of Doublheader
 
In Saturday's series opener against Charleston Southern, Longwood senior Sydney Backstrom admitted she didn't have her best stuff.
 
She got it back in a big way Sunday morning.
 
In the conference-leading fifth shutout this season for Longwood's All-Big South right-hander, Backstrom held Charleston Southern to three hits and struck out nine to lift the Lancers to a 2-0 win in game one of Sunday's doubleheader at Lancer Field.
 
Backstrom (17-11), who suffered a hard-luck loss Saturday after surrendering two earned runs over 7.0 innings, returned to her dominant form Sunday and allowed just two Buccaneer batters to advance past first base during a 101-pitch effort that evened the series at 1-1. The nine-strikeout performance gave her at least nine punchouts for the fifth time in her past eight starts and came exactly one week after she threw a seven-inning perfect game in last weekend's win at Presbyterian.
 
"Film is a great thing," said Longwood head coach Dr. Megan Brown. "We spent some time last night looking at film, seeing where we were and what we were doing. She had a mechanical adjustment that needed to be addressed; it was a very small adjustment, so I told her the good news is it's a small adjustments, the bad news is it doesn't take much to be off. She made it in pregame, and I think she grew a lot as a pitcher this weekend."
 
Backstrom got all the run support she needed in the bottom of the second for her Big South-leading 17th win when her graduate student Destiny Martinez drove a bases-loaded single back up the middle to send in a pair of runs. That knock, which was the 120th hit of Martinez's five-year career, came with two outs on the board and plated both Kasey Carr from third and Leah Powell from second base.
 
After Martinez's go-ahead single Backstrom protected the lead the rest of the way, working around three Charleston Southern hits and two walks to keep the shutout intact. Charleston Southern threatened in both the fourth and sixth innings by putting two runners on base, but the 6-1 right-hander stranded all four of those.
 
The Bucs' best scoring opportunity came in the top of the sixth when Katelyn Norris and Sarah Brown both reached to lead off the inning, but Backstrom rallied to strike out Madison Koger and Dominique Mannerino back-to-back to end the threat.  
 
The performance dealt Charleston Southern starter Holly Clark (3-5) a tough loss after the redshirt senior limited Longwood to two runs and five hits in her 6.0 complete innings.
 
Game Two: Sixth-Inning Rally Lifts Longwood to 3-2 Series-Clinching Victory
 
Lauren Taylor sparked a game-winning rally with a leadoff triple in the bottom of the sixth inning and scored the game-winning run on Kasey Carr's sacrifice fly to clinch a series-winning 3-2 victory in the finale of Sunday's doubleheader and the weekend's three-game series at Lancer Field.
 
Just after Charleston Southern right fielder Dominique Mannerino tied the game at 2-2 with a two-out RBI single in the top of the sixth inning, Taylor stepped to the plate as Longwood's leadoff batter in the bottom of the sixth. She cranked the second pitch she saw high and deep to the right-center field gap where it banged off the bottom of the outfield wall and sent her to third for a leadoff stand-up triple.
 
The veteran Carr drove her in two pitches later with a fly ball to left field, which was plenty deep enough to send Taylor trotting across the plate and reclaim a one-run lead for the Lancers.
 
The go-ahead sacrifice fly was the final scoring play of a nail-biter of a rubber game between Longwood and Charleston Southern in which the Lancers emerged with a 2-1 lead after the first inning but fought off multiple Buccaneer scoring charges throughout. Charleston Southern put at least one runner on base in all but one of the game's final six innings, including a sixth-inning rally that ended with Mannerino's game-tying single.
 
However, Longwood shut down nearly all of those momentum swings thanks to a combined effort from starter Sydney Backstrom and reliever Angelina Sherba, who teamed up to record 20 of the game's 21 outs. Backstrom, who threw a three-hit shutout in game one Sunday, rebounded from a one-run first inning to throw a scoreless second, and Sherba followed by limiting the Bucs to just one hit over the next three frames.
 
Charleston Southern finally broke through in the top of the sixth, building a rally against Longwood senior Arleigh Wood, who took over for Sherba with a 2-1 lead. Leadoff batter Sarah Brown drew a walk and advanced to third on back-to-back wild pitches, prompting Longwood head coach Dr. Megan Brown to go back to Backstrom after Wood recorded the inning's first out by getting cleanup hitter Ashley Meckley to pop up to shortstop.
 
Backstrom got her first batter to foul out to third base but walked Erika Cooper to put runners at the corners and then gave up Mannerino's first-pitch single through the right side. However, she dealt Meghan Gagliano a three-pitch strikeout on the next at bat to end the inning and saw her team reclaim the lead in the next half inning on Carr's go-ahead RBI flyout.
 
Charleston Southern staged one last scoring chance in the top of the seventh, taking advantage of a Backstrom misfire to first base on a potential ground out. However, that sequence ended with Brewington standing on third after Backstrom bounced back to retire the next two hitters – including the last on a comebacker that she fielded at her shins and then softly lobbed to first baseman Sydney Jacobsen for the final out.
 
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