DENTON, Texas—The Wildcats began play in the North Texas Invitational on Friday night taking on the Bears from Missouri State. Coming off a disappointing loss at Baylor on Thursday, ACU bounced back in tremendous fashion.
Samantha Bradley delivered in the circle and at the plate as she earned her first win of the season and drove in five runs on the night.
After two scoreless innings, the Bears would be the first to plate a run with a solo homerun in the bottom of the third. Bradley was unphased after giving up the run and went on to pitch two more scoreless innings before giving up another solo homer in the bottom of the seventh. The Wildcats did all their damage late scoring for the first time in the top of the sixth. Bradley got the scoring started with a two-run single before
Calie Burris drove in a third run in the inning.
ACU followed a solid sixth inning with four more runs in the seventh, this time led by an RBI single from
Caroline Adair and followed by a 3-run shot from Bradley. The Wildcats totaled 10 hits in the game with multi-hit performances from Bradley,
Katelyn Belch, and
Briana Tijerina.
Stat pack
- This was Bradley's first complete game of the season, she is now 1-2.
- The Wildcats swiped two bags on the day with
Linsey Tomlinson getting her third stolen base on the season in as many tries.
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Katelyn Belch has started the season 2-4 in two games with one double.
- This was Tijerina's second multi-hit game on the season.
- The team's .333 hitting percentage in the game was the highest, by far, on the season. The next closest was .217 in the win over UT Arlington.
Farler Figures
On Bradley's stellar outing: "Sam had a great game for us. She competed in the circle and kept us in the ball game all seven innings. Offensively, she was seeing the ball well and came up with big RBI hits. I'm very proud of her performance today and expect her to continue to produce well for us both offensively and in the circle."
On bouncing back from a tough loss: "After a bad loss it's important that we learn from the loss and use it to make us better. I think the loss yesterday did that, we made adjustments in all three aspects of the game. I'm proud of the girls for coming out ready to bounce back."
On what the team can take from this game to continue to find success going forward: "Today we saw that if we take care of the ball on defense, offensively make adjustments, and pass the baton we are able to execute our game and have a lot of fun on the bases."
Up next
ACU plays two more games in the North Texas Invitational tomorrow starting at 12:30 p.m. The Wildcats will first face Creighton before taking on the host, UNT, at 4:30 p.m.
