Trailing 7-4 with two outs in the top of the seventh, the Belmont Abbey softball team scored five runs, with senior shortstop Dani Beres giving the Abbey the lead for good with a three-run opposite field homer, and held off a rally by St. Andrews Presbyterian in the bottom of the inning as the 11th-seeded Crusaders upset the sixth-seeded Lady Knight with a 9-8 win in the opening round of the Conference Carolinas Tournament. The Abbey improves to 10-33, while St. Andrews dips to 18-26. Belmont Abbey advances to face the third-seeded Pfeiffer Falcons this afternoon at 4:00 p.m.

The top of the seventh began with a leadoff groundout, followed by Carrie Markham reaching on an error, and then a popout. Danielle Devlin and Gina Antonucci delivered back-to-back singles to load the bases for Katie Hobbs, who lifted a fly ball to right that was dropped for an error, allowing her to move to second and plating Markham and Devlin to cut the lead to 7-6. Beres followed with a towering blast to right center on a 1-2 pitch to give the Abbey a 9-7 lead.

St. Andrews would threaten in its half, loading the bases with one out, but would only score one run. Kailee Munden led off with a single and moved to second when Brianna Shurtleff was hit by a pitch. Kaitlin Harris brought home Munden with a single back through the box, but Shurtleff was cut down at third trying to stretch two bases. After back-to-back walks to load the bases, Jasmine Dobbin ripped a sharp grounder to Beres, who threw home to force out Harris for the second out. With the bases still loaded, Dani Ghramm grounded out to Beres to end the game.

Markham earned the win in two and two-thirds innings of relief, allowing two runs on five hits. Kayla Short earned the save after working the bottom of the seventh inning. Sarah Applegarth took the loss after allowing nine runs, but only two earned, on seven hits in a compete game effort.

The Abbey jumped ahead 1-0 in the top of the second on a leadoff homer to dead center by Tara Ruebel, but St. Andrews responded with seven unanswered runs, plating three in the third and four more in the fourth. The Crusaders trimmed their deficit to 7-4 in the top of the fifth with three runs, getting a two-RBI double by Danielle Puckett and a sacrifice fly by Devlin.