TUESDAY'S SCORES
Austin Peay 7, @Tennessee Tech 4
@Tennessee Tech 7, Austin Peay 0
@Western Kentucky 4, Belmont 0
AUSTIN PEAY 7, TENNESSEE TECH 4; TENNESSEE TECH 7, AUSTIN PEAY 0
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - Taylor Ketchum pitched her third complete-game shutout to lead the Tennessee Tech softball team to a 7-0 victory against Austin Peay Tuesday night in the second game of an Ohio Valley Conference doubleheader. The Lady Govs fended off a Golden Eagle comeback in the first game to win, 7-4.
Ketchum had one of her best outings of the past few weeks in the nightcap win. She pitched seven innings and held the Lady Govs scoreless, only giving up three hits. The sophomore struck out four of the 27 batters she faced, and only walked two.
Two Golden Eagles drilled two-run homers, each notching her third home runs of the season. Angi Sakamoto sent hers over the right field fence in the first game while junior Kendall Hooper launched hers over the left field barrier in the second contest.
The Golden Eagles were off to a slow start in the first game, giving up three runs in the top of the first inning. The Golden Eagles countered in the second, as Brittney Spalding doubled to deep center field, sending Hooper home. Angi Sakamoto hit a sacrifice fly to left field allowing Madison Taylor to score to cut the lead to 3-2.
The Lady Govs scored two more runs in the third to take a 5-2 lead. Tech recovered and held Austin Peay scoreless until the seventh inning. In the bottom of the sixth, Cortney Fry reached on a single up the middle before Sakamoto drove her home on her third home run of the season, pulling Tech to within one again, 5-4.
Austin Peay's Laurel Burroughs hit a home run in the seventh before the Lady Govs scored their final run to win, 7-4.
In the second contest, the Golden Eagles jumped to an early 3-0 lead in the first inning off of Hooper's two-run blast. In the second inning, two more runs crossed the plate on a Lady Gov error.
With a 4-0 lead, the Golden Eagles didn't score again until the fifth as Tech scored three runs on four hits. Chanelle Spalding, Brittney Spalding, Fry and Chelsea Burgess all connected for hits, including Chanelle and Fry's doubles. Tech won 7-0.
WESTERN KENTUCKY 4, BELMONT 0
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - Despite turning in a strong defensive performance, the Belmont softball team (13-26) was unable to recover from an early deficit and fell on the road at Western Kentucky (26-13) on Tuesday afternoon. The Lady Toppers held off BU, 4-0.
The Bruins notched one hit in the top of the first but WKU put three runs over the plate in the bottom of the same. Belmont continued to lean on its defense to keep Western Kentucky off the board for most of the contest. The Lady Toppers had a chance at a two-run homer in the bottom of the third inning but sophomore Heather Turner reached over the fence to pull the ball in to help retire the side.
BU would get runners on base in both the fifth and sixth innings but were unable to move them around. WKU added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth to expand its advantage to 4-0 and used strong pitching to prevent the Bruins from finding a scoring opportunity in the final inning.
Sophomore Kirbie Ferrell (Pasadena, Texas) tallied BU's lone hit of the afternoon.
Junior Mia Vierra (Palmdale, Calif.) tossed four innings and rang up one strikeout. Freshman Taylor Moon (Vestavia, Ala.) and sophomore Katie Clancy (Pasadena, Calif.) also saw time inside the circle.