By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Southeast Alamance will attempt to keep its softball season alive with Thursday night’s outing at West Carteret in Morehead City.
The top-seeded Stallions were held without a hit in a 5-0 loss to sixth-seeded West Carteret in Game 1 of the Class 5-A East Region finals Tuesday night in Haw River.
Caitlin Dumarce fired the no-hitter with 17 strikeouts. She walked four batters.
Southeast coach Tiffany Helton said the Stallions (26-2) didn’t adjust well with facing a left-handed pitcher for the first time this season.
“Hopefully we learned some things from this,” Helton said. “Obviously, we’re going to need to score runs and we’ll need more runners on base to get that going.”
If Southeast wins Game 2, the Stallions will be home Friday night for a decisive third game.
Southeast pitcher Maiya Woody almost escaped the fourth inning without yielding a run when the Stallions nearly pulled off a double play in Game 1. Instead, the Cavaliers (21-4) went on to score two-out three runs, with two coming on Kaelyn Margoupis’ double.
West Carteret tacked on one run in each of the sixth and seventh innings. Woody finished with eight strikeouts and five walks.
“We just didn’t produce how we needed to,” Southeast first baseman Brooke Hardister said. “I think we’ll go back to practice and have a much better mentality.”
Enka and North Davidson are playing in the West Region finals. The state finals are next week at UNC Greensboro or Duke.
Woody threw a four-hitter as Southeast won 1-0 against fourth-seeded Rockingham County in Friday’s fourth round, eliminating a 2025 state champion.
The Stallions were held to two hits, but Ava Wheeley had one of those and she scored a sixth-inning run. Rockingham County pitcher Ava Grace Pruitt, a University of North Carolina signee, struck out 11 batters.
