ABILENE –
Peyton Hedrick hit a pair of home runs Friday night to lead ACU to a 7-5 win over Houston Baptist, salvaging a doubleheader split in Southland Conference softball action at Wells Field.
HBU took the first game of the twinbill, 3-0, before the Wildcats bounced back behind Hedrick's best game of the season. The split leaves the Wildcats at 10-15 overall and 4-4 in the Southland, while HBU sits at 4-17 and 1-7 going into Saturday's series finale at noon.
Redshirt senior pitcher
Hannah Null threw in both games of the doubleheader and finished the night with 13 strikeouts in 10 innings of work. Null entered the first game needing just two strikeouts to reach 500 for her career, and she wasted little time getting to that mark. The Wildcats' all-time strikeouts leader whiffed Demi Janak to end the top of the first inning for her 500
th career strikeout.
The first game remained scoreless, however, going to the sixth inning before the Huskies finally got to Null. With two outs, Null gave up a single and a walk before giving up a three-run home run to Nicole Shedd to put HBU up 3-0. ACU left seven runners on base in the first game, including two in the bottom of the seventh as HBU came away with the win.
Hedrick, though, led the Wildcats to a doubleheader split in the second game by driving two balls out of the ballpark and driving in five runs to lead her team to a 7-5 win. The Wildcats' bats came alive in the nightcap with 10 hits after putting up just two hits in the first game. Hedrick,
Brianna Barnhill and
Caroline Adair each collected two hits for ACU.
ACU got the lead in the bottom of the second when freshman catcher
Kayla Keeling led off the inning with a single and then came around to score on Hedrick's first home run of the night, giving the Wildcats a 2-1 lead.
Hedrick wasn't done, however, as she blasted her second home run of the game (third of the season) the next time she went to the plate, a three-run blast in the bottom of the third inning to give ACU a 5-1 lead. The Huskies scored one run in the fourth but the Wildcats answered with two runs of their own of three hits. HBU would answer back in the fifth with three runs cutting into the Wildcats lead 7-5.
Null came in to close the game, giving up just one hit and striking out four to collect her first save of the season. Callie Burris got her second win of the season moving to 2-4, giving up two runs on three hit and striking out one.
