What you need to know:
* Georgia State (33-28, 13-11 SBC) upset tournament host South Alabama 3-2, but lost 9-1 to Texas State to end the 2016 season.
* The Panthers entered the tournament at the No. 4 seed, but will return to Atlanta with a third-place finish.
* Georgia State saw three seniors play their final games on Friday.
MOBILE, Ala. – Georgia State's softball team saw its season come to an end Friday as the fourth-seeded Panthers were eliminated from the Sun Belt Tournament with a 9-1 defeat to third-seeded Texas State. GSU closes the season with a 33-28 record and a third-place finish at the conference tournament.
In order to get to the contest against Texas State, the Panthers had to first play No. 2 seed and tournament host South Alabama. Entering that game, GSU was 1-10 against the Jaguars and had lost eight in a row. With the odds against them, Georgia State turned to senior Katie Worley who hurled 4.1 innings and allowed no earned runs over four hits on her way to a career-high 17th win.
The Panthers jumped to a 2-0 lead in the third inning on sophomore Ivie Drake's 16th home run of the season, a two-run shot to center field. The long ball was the 38th of her career, tying Callie Alford's record set in 2015. Senior Taylor Anderson then delivered an RBI-single in the fifth inning that gave GSU a 3-0 advantage. They would need that extra run as the Jaguars scored two in the bottom of the fifth.
Freshman Amanda Chance came on in relief of Worley and gave up one hit over 2.2 innings to record her fourth save of the year.
The emotional win kept GSU alive in the tournament and presented the opportunity to play for a spot in the title game.
Georgia State couldn't come up with another upset however, and was defeated by Texas State 9-1. The Bobcats led 4-0 when junior Kensey Caldwell doubled to left-center, scoring GSU's only run of the game. It was Caldwell's 19th double of the season which is second-most in a single season for GSU. Caldwell finished the season just one double shy of Corrie Roberts' record 20 doubles in 1999.
It was the final game for GSU's three seniors. Worley finished with 46 wins and 378 strikeouts, tallying a career-best 2.82 ERA in her final season. Anderson played in 228 games in four years and started all but two of them. She hit .321 with 29 home runs and 134 RBI. Anderson sits atop GSU's leaderboard with 190 career runs scored. Her 134 RBI is fourth most in school history. Senior pitcher Chelsea Stanfield made 38 appearances in two seasons with the Panthers and collected six wins and 32 strikeouts in 64 innings.
The Panthers return nine players that made at least 25 starts in the lineup along with Chance who had a team-high 38 appearances in the circle.
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