ABILENE – Senior
Hannah Null tossed her 12th complete game of the season Friday night to lead ACU to a 4-3 win over Northwestern State in the first game of a three-game Southland Conference softball series at Wells Field.
The Wildcats improved to 9-12 on the season 3-1 Southland while the Lady Demons dropped to 15-8, 3-1. The series will conclude Saturday with a doubleheader set to start at noon.
Null struck out seven batters and only allowed one earned run in seven innings to earn the win, improving to 8-6 on the season. She is now 46-41 in her career and has thrown 49 complete games.
The Wildcats held the Lady Demons to a shutout until the seventh inning when a single, fielder's choice and an error put runners on first and second. A double scored the Lady Demons' first run with no one outs. Northwestern State plated two more runs in the seventh before Null struck out Sidney Salmans to end the game.
The Wildcats put runs on the board early when
Donelle Johnson was patient at the plate forcing a 10-pitch walk to lead off the bottom of the first and then scored two batters later on a
Peyton Hedrick single.
Holly Neese followed Hedrick's RBI single with her fourth home run of the year to give ACU a 3-0 lead.
Johnson got things going in the second inning with an infield single and then scored on a double by
Braegan Hamilton to give Null and the Wildcats a 4-0 lead. Six Wildcats collected hits, including Hamilton who was the only ACU hitter with two hits in the game.
