by LAWTON – The Aggie softball team opened up Lone Star Conference season with a pair of home wins as they swept their double-header Friday against Texas A&M-Kingsville. Kelsey Watson pitched seven shutout innings leading to a 3-0 game one win, while the CU bats struck for 13 runs on 12 hits for the 13-1 game two victory.
Watson’s pitching gem in the opener set the tone for game one as she tossed her fourth shutout of the season and now hasn’t given up an earned run in her last 18 innings of work. Outside of a two out hit by Texas A&M-Kingsville in the first inning, she sat down the next 13 of 14 hitters to toss a three hitter.
All of CU’s hitting fell in the middle innings with Chelsea DeLong knocking in a single to center field to put the Aggies up 2-0 after three. In the next home frame, Paige Daino added one more for the Ags with her ninth homer of the season to make it a three run advantage for CU.
The run support was all Watson (Comanche Tribe) would need with 87 pitches as she will move to 7-1 this season and with an ERA of 1.86.
Cameron had seven hits with Sonora Zukerman having CU’s only multi-hit game.
Game two started out with a bang as the Aggies struck for five runs in the bottom of the first inning. A pair of RBI singles by Daino and Breezy McComas gave CU the 2-0 lead. Zukerman then helped out her cause in the circle by hitting a three run homer to deep centerfield to extend the lead to 5-0.
The Javelinas added a sac fly RBI in the top of the second, but the Aggies responded in the bottom of the inning putting up another five spot. Tara Martini singled in a run to start the scoring, and was followed by a three RBI double from Lauren Renneker. Emily Nix added another run on an RBI single to extend CU’s lead to 10-1.
Cameron added three more runs in the bottom of the third, as Renneker drove in two on another double and McComas drove in the third on a fielder’s choice. That would be all CU would need as Zukerman held TAMUK scoreless in innings three, four, and five as the Aggies got the run rule win. Zukerman gave up just three hits and one run in her five innings of work to move to 6-1 on the season.
Misty Dooley, Renneker, Zukerman, and Nix all had two hits in game two with Renneker driving in five runs and Zukerman driving in three.
With the win, the Aggies move to 17-2 on the season with a 2-0 LSC mark and extend their current win streak to 10 games, while the Javelinas fall to 7-10 with a 1-5 league record.
