March 18, 2002

Southeast Missouri (2-9)
vs. College of Charleston Cougars (10-15)
March 19, 2002 - 1:00 p.m., Doubleheader
Patriots Point Park - Charleston, S.C.
All Time Series: First Ever Meeting.

About Southeast: The Southeast Missouri State Softball team continues its Spring Break trip by heading three hours from northern South Carolina, to the coast and beautiful Charleston. The Otahkians are fresh off a 1-3 finish at the Winthrop Tournament and will be looking to get back into the swing of things by playing a doubleheader with the College of Charleston Cougars on Tuesday.

At Winthrop, Southeast dropped its first three pool play games, against Pittsburgh (the Pool A champions), Jacksonville State and Birmingham Southern. The Otahkians defeated Gardner-Webb 8-1 in the final game of pool play on Saturday. Unfortunately, Southeast was not able to carry that momentum into the bracket play on Sunday morning, because rain wiped out all of Sunday's games.

Senior shortstop Dawn Piantino had an excellent week for Southeast, batting 10-15 (.667) in the four games at Winthrop. Piantino also made history by hitting her first homerun in her career at Southeast Missouri in 230-plus at-bats.

Charleston is fresh off opening its Southern Conference opener, dropping two of three games to Furman. The Cougars did manage to win its last game in the series, a 3-0 victory. CofC slip a series with Gardner-Webb this season, winning 2-1 and dropping a game 3-1. The Cougars have played one other Ohio Valley Conference opponent, Eastern Illinois this season. Charleston lost to EIU 6-4 at the Elon Tournament two weekends ago.

Southeast still has one more doubleheader remaining, at Saint Louis University on Thursday, before returning home to open OVC play with Eastern Kentucky this Saturday and Sunday.