No. 2 Howard defeated No. 1 Bethune-Cookman (BCU) 10-1 in the quarterfinals of the 2008 MEAC Softball Championship at Ormond Sports Complex in Ormond, Fla.

The Lady Bison improve to 23-15 overall and will meet No. 3 seed Delaware State in the semifinals on May 9 at 11:30 a.m. The winner of that game advances to Saturday's MEAC Tournament Championship game. The Wildcats drop to 20-55 with the loss.

Howard sophomore Christina McCoy earned the win, throwing four strikeouts while giving up three hits and one run to improve her season record to 7-4. BCU's Allison Garcia took the loss and dropped her season record to 16-19. Garcia gave up 10 runs off 20 hits with five earned runs and four strikeouts.

"Christina pitched a brilliant game," Howard coach Tonja Braxton said. "I don't know what it is about Bethune-Cookman, but she seems to pitch well against them. She had a good performance against them last year."

Brianne Gutierrez, Courtney Young, Candice Tatum and Christina McCoy each had three hits for the Bison. Bethune-Cookman's Ashton Hinds recorded two hits for the Wildcats.
The score was 0-0 until Howard got their bats going in the fourth inning. Howard scored five runs that stanza, spurred by an Emily Johnson single down the left side.

"We were a lot more relaxed in this game after the close game with FAMU," Braxton elaborated. "We made a lot of uncharacteristic errors in the FAMU game. But tonight, we were a lot more relaxed and it showed in our performance."
Bethune-Cookman made the final score 10-1 when Sonya Urteaga scored on Hinds' double to left field in the sixth inning.

"We were very tight at the start of the game," Braxton said. "Our defense kept us in the game until we settled down offensively."

? Copyright 2007 meacsports.com