NOTEPAD: Mercer women’s lacrosse wins title, Bears baseball sweeps Wofford

The Mercer women’s lacrosse team won the Big South Conference regular season championship for the fifth consecutive year, defeating Longwood last week to take the title outright after clinching a share of it earlier this season.

The Bears defeated Longwood 18-8 on Saturday in a dominant showing much in line with their stellar season, as Mercer improved to 11-6 overall and 8-0 in conference play with the win. The Bears clinched at least a share of the regular season trophy with a 17-2 victory over Wofford, the No. 3 team in the Big South, earlier this month.

The regular season title also gives Mercer the No. 1 seed in the Big South conference tournament for the fifth straight year. The Bears have won that tournament for five consecutive seasons as well as the premier team in the conference. 

They will play Friday at 4 p.m. in a home game — Mercer will host the semifinals and championship because they earned the No. 1 seed — against the winner of No. 4 Furman vs. No. 5 Radford.

Caroline Glus, a staple in Mercer’s lineup as an attacker who arrived in 2023 and blossomed in 2024, led the way again for the Bears this season with 56 goals and 68 points. She averaged four points per game and 3.29 goals per game, leading the Big South conference in both statistics.

Glus scored four goals and added on two assists, three caused turnovers and four ground balls in the win over Longwood to clinch another conference title. The Hershey, Pennsylvania native is a senior for the Bears.

Mercer baseball gets crucial sweep of Wofford

The Bears swept the top team in the southern Conference, the Wofford Terriers, right out of OrthoGeorgia Park last weekend, winning three games 9-8, 5-1 and 13-8 to get back above .500 in conference play.

Wofford came into the game with an 8-1 conference record while Mercer was 4-5, making the series a critical momentum swing for the Bears after they were swept by Western Carolina in their last SoCon series.

The first game was by far the most dramatic, as Mercer needed 11 innings to get a walk-off win. The victory was delivered by Chris Katz, who hit an RBI double to end things.

It was part of a huge weekend for the Mercer left fielder, who also had a grand slam Friday as part of a 4-for-6 effort at the plate that evening. Katz hit another home run in Saturday’s 5-1 win. By the time Sunday rolled around, the Terriers wanted nothing to do with him, as Katz walked twice in the series finale and came around to score both times.

Though Mercer’s pitching struggled a bit to contain opposing hitters in two of the three games — run prevention has been a bit of an issue in conference play — Miguel Hugas had an encouraging outing in Saturday’s game, throwing seven dazzling innings and allowing only three hits.

The sweep took Mercer to 32-13 overall and 7-5 in SoCon play, the latter of which leaves them in fifth place in the conference. Katz, fellow outfielder Eli Stephens and shortstop Titan Kamaka are third, fourth and fifth in the conference in OPS, respectively. The Bears lead the conference with 406 runs scored. The offense did not miss a beat against Wofford despite the Terriers having the lowest team ERA in the conference.

Mercer will attempt to keep slugging its way through the SoCon this weekend with a road series against Samford.