ABILENE - Junior second baseman
Holly Neese had herself quite a day at the plate Tuesday during ACU's first-round NISC regional game vs. UT Arlington, going 4-for-5 with a game-tying home run and go-ahead single in the ninth, as the Wildcats held on to beat the Mavericks, 5-4 at the Lamar Softball Complex.
The Wildcats will play their next game Wednesday at 3 p.m. against the winner of Lamar and Louisiana Monroe in this double-elimination bracket.
ACU trailed 3-2 heading into its final at-bat in the top of the seventh and started with a couple of ground outs off the bats of
Taylor Brown and
Peyton Hedrick. Neese, who already had singled twice in three previous plate appearances, then came up and crushed a solo home run to center field on a 1-0 pitch from reliever Sam Montes to tie the score at 3-3.
Two innings later, the Wildcats took the lead for good on a two-out RBI triple by Hedrick that scored pinch runner
Blair Clayton, and Neese followed with a single through the left side to put ACU ahead at 5-3.
The Wildcats would need that insurance run after Mallory Foster led off the bottom of the ninth with her third home run of the season. From there, however, freshman
Sidney Holman got the next three outs on 10 pitches with Hedrick catching the final out for softball's first NCAA DI postseason victory.
Holman pitched all 9.0 innings on 129 pitches in winning her 21st games of the season. The Belton, Texas native gave up four runs (two earned) on five hits and four walks with one strikeout.
Both of UTA's unearned runs came in the second inning to tie the score at 2-2, and the Mavericks grabbed a 3-2 lead in the fourth on a sacrifice bunt RBI by catcher Kacey Eveertt. UTA would have a runner tagged out between third and home plate in the fifth and left a runner stranded at third base in the sixth. But after a sixth-inning single by Reagan Wright, the Mavs wouldn't record another base hit off Holman until the Foster round-tripper.
ACU also scored two unearned runs off UTA starter Sam Clakley in the second inning.
Brianna Barnhill reached on an error to begin the frame and scored two batters later on an illegal pitch.
Casey-May Huff also reached base that inning on a fielder's choice and scored on Brown's RBI ground out to first base.
