SALEM, Va. – Shenandoah University earned the championship of the 2006 Ferrum College Softball Invitational Sunday afternoon with victories over U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and Emory & Henry College.

Shenandoah (7-9) won the program's first championship since sharing a 1993 Eastern States Athletic Conference regular season title by defeating USMMA 7-6 and Emory & Henry 3-0.

The Hornets trailed 6-1 in the USMMA contest and 6-5 heading into the seventh inning only to turn in a two-out rally to win. Coach Marlena Kotynski's club then scored one run in the first and two in the second against the Wasps to become the only school at the tournament with an undefeated record.

SU opened the tournament on Saturday with 4-2 and 5-1 wins over Roanoke and Southern Virginia, respectively.

The Hornets got the winning runs in the USMMA game when sophomore Jessica Jessica Bollinger stroked a two-out double to center that plated Ashley Ballentine and Alicia Sanders with the tying and game-winning runs, respectively. Ballentine reached on a fielder's choice when Katie Haskins was retired at home with the possible tying run one batter before Sanders was hit by a pitch.

Haskins allowed a leadoff single in the bottom of the seventh, but sandwiched a groundout to third around a pair of strikeouts to earn the win from the circle. The freshman improves to 4-4 on the year after striking out four against five walks and eight hits in the complete game performance.

Sophomore Tana Bartek was the winning pitcher against E&H; – she scattered five hits over seven innings to toss her second shutout of the spring. 

Bollinger provided all of the offense that Bartek would need when she led off with a double to center, was sacrificed to second and came home on Catherine Beuerle's groundout to second.

In the second, Bollinger knocked her third consecutive double of the day, this time to right, to score both Haskins and Bartek. Both Haskins and Bartek had reached on singles.

Bollinger finished the day with three hits while Kristen Templeton was 3-for-4 in the first game of the day and Sanders 2-for-3 with two RBI.

Box Scores/Plays by Play 

Shenandoah is back in action on Tuesday afternoon with a non-league doubleheader against Mary Washington.