PORTALES, N.M. – Abilene Christian's softball team did little to nothing wrong offensively Friday at Eastern New Mexico as the Wildcats pounded Zia pitchers for 35 runs on 29 hits during its doubleheader sweep.
Seven of those hits left the ballpark, and two of those were grand slams knocked out by
Cara Hoover and
Courtney Flanary.
ACU won by scores of 25-0 and 10-8 , which lifted its season and conference records to 26-22 and 10-12, while the Zias – losers of five straight – fell to 14-37 and 6-16.
The 25 runs scored in today's first game established a new single-game record for the program, eclipsing the previous standard of 22, which was first attained against Texas-Permian Basin on Feb. 10, 1998 and again vs. the Zias on March 11, 2011.
ACU also set a new record for most RBI with 24, but finished one shy of tying the team record for most home runs with four.
Junior
Lyndi Smith hit the Wildcats' first home run, a three-run shot in the first inning, that was her 10th of the season and gave ACU a 4-0 lead. Two batters later,
Taylor Fitzgerald clubbed a solo shot over the wall in left field.
A dropped fly ball by Eastern New Mexico's right fielder helped lead to five more runs in the second, and during ACU's 11-run fourth,
Madison Buckley drilled a three-run double and Hoover crushed a pinch-hit grand slam that pushed the Wildcat lead to 21-0.
ACU added four more runs in the fifth, the last of which scored on
Sara Vaughn's three-run bomb to center field.
Buckley recorded the most RBI in game one with five, while Vaughn scored the most runs with four and ripped a team-high three hits. ACU also was helped along by 11 walks, four wild pitches and three hit batsmen.
Overall, the Wildcats sent 14 players to the plate in game one and all of them recorded a hit, scored a run, or drove one in, making it a very easy day for senior starter
Caitlyn Crain (12-10).
Crain tossed 57 pitches through 5.0 innings, allowed two hits and struck out four.
However, in game two, Crain was thrown into the fire as the Zias nearly came all the way back from a 10-3 deficit during a five-run seventh. Starter
Shelby Hall began the inning, but allowed the first six batters to reach base and was chased from the game after Savannah Chavez doubled in two runs that made it a 10-6 game.
Peyton Mosley then entered the circle with the bases loaded but could not retire any of the three batters she faced. The first reached via her fielding error. She then allowed a walk and RBI single that trimmed the Wildcats' advantage to 10-8.
Crain was then summoned from the bullpen with the go-ahead runs on base, but quickly sealed her fifth save of the year with consecutive strikeouts of No. 1 and 2 hitters Elizabeth Velasquez and Kira Sirag. Crain also recorded a win and save last Saturday in a doubleheader vs. Cameron.
ACU's offense in game two immediately picked up where it left off in game one as Flanary blasted a first-inning grand slam for her seventh home run of the season. And then in the second,
Keanna Winkfield pushed the ACU lead to 5-0 on her first round-tripper in two seasons as a Wildcat.
Winkfield went 3-for-5 in the nightcap, lifting her season batting average to .409.
Hoover went deep for the second time in as many games in leading off the third, and in the sixth, the Wildcats scored four times while sending nine batters to the plate.
Ashley Nolan ripped a two-run single to center during this frame, which proved to be the game-winner.
Despite being chased from the game one out into the seventh, Hall earned her ninth win of the year behind three strikeouts. The Zias scored one run against her in the first, plus two more in the fifth. Of the five runs she was charged with in the seventh, only two were earned.
The two sides conclude their three-game series Saturday at 2 p.m. (MT)/3 p.m. (CT).
