LONGVIEW, Texas - A pair of third-inning home runs to go along with a two-run sixth inning proved to the difference as the LeTourneau University softball team lost to number 12 nationally-ranked East Texas Baptist University by a final of 5-0 at the LETU Softball Field on Saturday, March 24th.
LETU now stands at 7-15 overall and 5-13 in the American Southwest Conference following their series with ETBU while the Tigers improved to 20-4 overall and a conference-leading 14-1 record in the ASC.
Both team would see opportunities squandered in the early innings, as East Texas Baptist would leave three runners stranded over the first two innings while the YellowJackets saw one runner left on base in both the first and second inning. ETBU broke the game open in the top of the third with a leadoff solo home run to left field and would take advantage of two walks to put two runners on before a double-play nearly got LeTourneau out of the inning. Still one out short of keeping the deficit at 1-0, East Texas Baptist would collect their second home run of the inning with the latter winding up as a two-run blast that put the score at 3-0 in favor of the Tigers.
The score would remain 3-0 in favor of ETBU until the top of the sixth inning when East Texas Baptist would use a leadoff single and stolen base to put a runner on second before a throwing error brought home the fourth run of the game and a runner on first. Following a pitching change by LETU, the Tigers would steal their second base of the inning and use a wild pitch to advance their base runner to third with just one out which would allow for an RBI groundout to make the score 5-0. LeTourneau managed to escape the rest of the inning unscathed before holding ETBU scoreless in the seventh, but just could not generate any offense to try and mount a comeback.
LETU's lone hit in the game came off the bat of junior
Macey Mize, who would also collect the only stolen base of the game for the YellowJackets. Senior
Bailey Woodard drew both of the two walks issued by the Tiger pitching staff, totaling the three stranded base runners for LeTourneau.
Starting pitcher
Julie Martinez (1-5) threw the first five-plus innings in the circle, allowing all five runs on six hits and striking out one batter on 98 pitches. Senior
Ashley Burdine made her second appearance of the weekend, closing out the final two innings and allowing just one hit.
A shortened-week will see the YellowJackets hit the road on Thursday, traveling to Richardson, Texas to take on the University of Texas-Dallas at 6 p.m. to open up a three-game American Southwest Conference Series with the Comets.
