This past weekend at the Curtis & Jacqueline Dail Softball Stadium, Coastal Carolina, Georgetown, Longwood and Stony Brook visited Raleigh for the Wolfpack Challenge. N.C. State took the tournament win Sunday with a 7-1 victory against Longwood.

The tournament opened up Friday with a match between Stony Brook vs. Georgetown. Later that day, State faced Coastal Carolina. Sophomore outfielder Landon Warren had her first career run in the bottom of the second, helping to increase the Pack’s lead to 5-1. Senior pitcher Lindsay Campana started the game allowing four hits and striking out nine, while sophomore pitcher Morgan Peeler finished the game with the final three outs giving up one run and settling the score at 8-2.

The team returned to action Saturday where it fell to Georgetown. The Hoyas started out with two-run homer from Kristi Preuss in the top of the first followed by two more runs in the top of the second. In the bottom of the third, Warren helped to trim Georgetown’s lead to 4-1.

As the game continued, Georgetown increased it’s lead 7-1 until junior second baseman Alyssa Ishibashi hit a sac-fly in the bottom of the fifth, bringing Warren in on a double and passed ball. Georgetown’s Samantha Peters brought the Hoyas lead up in the top of the sixth with an RBI, ending the game and giving Georgetown the 8-2 win.

Coach Lisa Navas said the after the loss to Georgetown the team was made aware of what it was doing wrong and aimed to fix the problem before the final two games against Stony Brook and Longwood.

“We were just kind of physically there and not stepping up and doing the things we needed to and getting excited about the little things of playing the game,” Navas said. “I think the kids took a back seat in the Georgetown game. I am not going to take anything away from them. They hit the ball well, but we just didn’t step up to the challenge and compete, and that is the disappointing part.”

Coming off the loss to Georgetown, State turned around and defeated Stony Brook 9-3 later that day. Eight Wolfpack players recorded hits, including three runs by sophomore catcher Alyssa Allbritten.

Two Stony Brook errors in the top of the fourth helped to pad the Pack’s lead 6-0. The Pack held the Seahawks down until Vivki Kavitsky had a three-run shot in the bottom of the fourth trimming the Packs lead to 6-3. The Pack held strong, however, returning with three more runs in the top of the fifth: two runs from a triple by Allbritten and a single from sophomore shortstop Katie Mansilla.

Aware of what it needed to do to win, the team defeated Longwood on Sunday 7-1.

“We had some talks before the game about keeping each other up,” Campana said. “We were talking about holding each other accountable, but also who gets who pumped up. I think that kept us up through the whole game because we had each other to lean on and had each other to pump up.”

Campana had a strong game, striking out 10 and refusing to give up any runs to the Lancers who had taken 23 from the other teams over the weekend. In the bottom of the fourth, sophomore second baseman Toni Ann Williford had two RBIs, bringing the Wolfpack’s lead up 3-0. Ishibashi followed with a double that brought in a run and then came in on a hit from Allbritten, bringing the Pack’s lead up to 5-0. Longwood started to catch up in the sixth with a run off of an error in the field, but the Wolfpack shut them out with a home run by Allbritten in the bottom of the sixth.

“We have been working on staying up through games and continuing to get better every time,” Campana said. “This last game especially we peaked at the end of the tournament, which is not ideal. You want to peak towards the middle, but we peaked at the end and were definitely up the whole game and ready to play.”

Warren said that the key to her team’s success this weekend was being able to jump on teams early and come out strong.

“We set the goal today to really go out there and work hard.” Warren said. “I think that is what we are going to try to do from here on out, because it is really working for us.”

The Wolfpack finished the tournament 11-8 and will return to action Wednesday, March 10 against Campbell.