CLEVELAND, Miss. – The University of West Florida softball team continued its astonishing turnaround from last season by completing a series sweep over No. 21 Delta State on Sunday. Kalyn Chapman's 13th complete game of the year and three-run home run in the bottom of the fifth inning helped propel UWF to the 6-1 win over the Lady Statesmen.
 
Emily Pettigrew led the game off with a double to left-center field and was moved to third on a single from Rhiannon Sassman. With the single, Sassman bumped her hitting streak up to 14 games. That streak is the ninth-longest in program history, tying her with Moira Gustin (2006), Jessica Davila (2002), Jill Burnett (1998) and LaTonya Roberts (1995).
 
Pettigrew came around for UWF's first run of the day on a wild pitch with Kathleen Smiley at the plate. Smiley singled in the seventh to extend her on-base streak to 13 games.
 
Caitlin Steel struck for the first of her two RBIs with a double in the right-center gap in the top of the second to score Chelsy Krantz and put the score at 2-0. Rachel Wright singled to lead off an inning for the second time in the game in the fourth inning, and Steel drove her in with a single to center field.
 
The game was Steel's sixth with multiple hits and fifth with multiple RBIs, while Wright recorded her first three-hit game of the season.
 
Jacey Castro and Wright each singled with two outs in the fifth inning before Chapman came to the plate. Chapman hit her team-best sixth home run of the season in the fifth, giving her a five-run cushion to pitch with in the circle.
 
Chapman was masterful again in the circle today, picking up her 18th win of the season. Over seven innings, Chapman struck out six and allowed just two hits and a run.
 
She found herself with a runner on third and one out in the bottom of the first, when the UWF defense caught NCAA stolen base leader Kassidy Tally trying to come home on a suicide squeeze. Chapman retired the next six batters and eight of the next nine, heading into the fourth inning.
 
Her performance on Sunday placed Chapman in the top five in the GSC in wins (18), innings pitched (132.1), strikeouts (143) and opposing batting average (.203).
 
With the 6-1 win, UWF improved its conference mark to 22-8, good for second place in the Gulf South Conference, and pushed its winning streak to 15 games. UWF has won its last 14 conference contests, which is the second-longest such streak in the GSC this year, behind North Alabama's 15-game stretch.
 
The win marked the first three-game sweep for UWF over Delta State since 2009. The 15-game winning streak is the longest for West Florida since the 2005 team made program history by winning 27 in a row.
 
The Argonauts have now won seven GSC series this season and have six weekend sweeps over league competition.
 
UWF's final regular-season series will begin on Saturday with a doubleheader against Shorter, followed by the series finale on Sunday.