ADA, Okla. – The Arkansas Tech softball team won both ends of their doubleheader on Saturday afternoon on the road at East Central, winning the opening game, 8-4 in nine innings and then 4-1 in the second game.
The twin-bill sweep gave Tech the three-game series sweep. It was the Golden Suns' fourth conference series sweep of the season and their third-consecutive.
GAME ONE
In the opener, the Golden Suns got out to a 4-0 lead with a single run in the first and three in the second. The run in the first scored on a dropped third strike that allowed
Anna Winkfield to score from third. In the second,
Destiney Madewell hit a two-run double while
Miya Curry drew a bases loaded walk.
ECU got on the board for the first time in the third. In the fifth, the Tigers managed to tie the score at four-all as they scored three runs in that inning.
Neither team would score in the sixth or seventh innings as the game went into extra innings.
Nothing came across in the eighth either, but in the top of the ninth, the Golden Suns struck for four runs on five hits as they went up 8-4. The inning got going with a one-out double from
Riley Drake. She was then pinch-ran for by Brinley Bancroft. Bancroft soon moved to third on a single by Winkfield.
Curry then drove in Bancroft on a single to left field. After the second out of the inning was recorded,
Caroline Wilhelm provided a run of insurance with a RBI single. A walk to
Aaliyah Dixon continued the inning and loaded the bases.
Jenny Shank would then be called upon to pinch-hit and she delivered in a big way with a two-run single to left.
ECU would threaten with consecutive one-out hits, but
Klaire Womack, who came on in relief in the bottom of the fifth, kept the Tigers off the board and put the finishing touches on her first collegiate victory in the circle.
Womack would end up pitching 4.2 innings with no runs on two hits with one walk and four strikeouts.
GAME TWO
The second game was scoreless until the top of the fifth when Shank helped her own cause as the Golden Suns' starting pitcher as she connected for a three-run home run. That homer was the first in her collegiate career.
ECU got a run back in their half of the fifth, but Shank would go on to hold the Tigers scoreless the rest of the way out. The Golden Suns added a run of insurance in the top of the seventh to bring the score to its final of 4-1.
Shank would go the distance in the circle, scatter six hits, allow the one run, walk none and strikeout four.
UP NEXT
The Golden Suns remain on the road this coming weekend as they will play a three-game series at Ouachita Baptist. The series is scheduled to start with a single game at 4 p.m. on Friday, March 27.
