WACO – The ACU softball team dropped a pair of games to nationally ranked teams Saturday at the Baylor Invitational, falling to both 25th-ranked Tulsa and seventh-ranked Baylor at Getterman Stadium.
The Wildcats lost to Tulsa, 10-0, in five innings early in the afternoon, and then played one of its best games of the season in a 4-2 loss to Baylor. The Wildcats are now 3-8 on the season and will play North Texas at 10 a.m. Sunday in the final game of the tournament.
In the loss to Baylor, ACU jumped out to a 1-0 lead over the Bears as freshman shortstop
Peyton Hedrick continued her torrid start to the season with an RBI double that drove in
Taylor Brown to give the Wildcats the early lead.
But the Bears answered in the bottom of the second on a three-run home run by Shelby Friudenberg, driving in Jordan Strickland and Ari Hawkins in front of her to make it 3-1. Baylor increased its lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the third when Kaitlyn Thumann led off with a single, stole second and scored on a throwing error by Hedrick.
Those four runs were more than enough for Sarah Beth Toben, who went six strong innings in the circle for Baylor, allowing just three hits and one run while striking out four Wildcats. Toben got the win to improve to 3-0 while Kendall Potts got the save after pitching the seventh inning. However, she didn't get out of the inning unscathed as ACU's
Alyson Bishoff hit a one-out solo home run to left-centerfield to make it 4-2.
But Potts got the final two outs on a strikeout and a groundout to finish the game.
Emily Seidel pitched well for the Wildcats, giving up nine hits and four runs (three earned) over six innings. She was tagged with the loss to fall to 2-5 on the season.
In the opener against Tulsa, the Hurricane scored once in the third inning, five more times in the fourth and four more times in the seventh to take the 10-0 win. Tulsa starting pitcher Emily Watson allowed just four hits and struck out seven Wildcats in a complete-game performance in the circle.
Julia Montoya got the start for ACU and gave up four and five runs in 3 1/3 innings to take the loss and fall to 1-3 on the season. Hedrick had two hits for ACU, and Bishoff and
Brianna Barnhill had one apiece.
For Tulsa, Brittany Walker was 2 for 4 with two runs scored and three RBI, while Jodi Edmiston was 1 for 3 with 2 runs scored and 2 RBI. First baseman Julie Kernen was 2 for 4 with three RBI.
