TexAnns surge past Zias

Staff report

PORTALES — It’s been a long, hard season for the Eastern New Mexico University softball team, but Saturday’s season-ender against Tarleton State at Zia Field may have been the toughest pill to swallow.

link Staff photo: Kevin Wilson

ENMU freshman Simone Laurenz of Portales is congratulated by Zias assistant coach Tiffani Rodd after drawing a fifth-inning walk as a pinch-hitter in the opener of Saturday’s Lone Star Conference softball doubleheader against Tarleton State at Zia Field. The TexAnns completed a four-game sweep with a 10-2, 17-7 sweep of the Zias.

Trying to salvage the finale of the teams’ four-game Lone Star Conference series, the Zias bolted to a 7-0 lead after three innings in the second game of the doubleheader. Tarleton promptly got a three-run homer from Mikayla Stogsdill — her first of the season — and a go-ahead grand slam from catcher Nyka Wood in an eight-run fourth, then finished it off with eight more in the sixth for a 17-7 win.

Both games, including the 10-2 opener, ended after six innings on the eight-run rule.

ENMU (16-34, 3-25 LSC) looked like it was in business early, getting a two-out, run-scoring single from Susie Chandler, consecutive RBI doubles from Morgan Green, Aurelia Sandoval and Lizzy Velasquez and a run-producing wild pitch by starter Alyssa Ringhausen for a 5-0 first-inning lead. They made it 7-0 in the third when Katie Ripple doubled home a run and scored on a single by Savannah Chavez.

link Staff photo: Kevin Wilson

ENMU freshman Aja Secheslingloff sends a pitch plateward during the third inning in the opener of Saturday’s Lone Star Conference softball doubleheader against Tarleton State at Zia Field.

It all came apart, though, in the fourth.

Tarleton State (29-19, 16-10) finished the series with 10 home runs and 66 hits. The Zias complicated matters in the sixth inning by committing four errors, making all of those runs unearned.

Ripple, who was 4-for-18 for the season coming into the finale but got the start as the designated player, went 2-for-2 for the Zias. Second baseman Jackie Candelaria was 2-for-4.

Wood finished 3-for-5 with five RBIs while third baseman Savannah Stech and first baseman Erika Menchaca also had three hits each for the TexAnns.

Shelby Hedrick (4-4) worked 2 2/3 innings in relief of Ringhausen and Haley Fryman, who pitched a complete-game seven-hitter in the opener, earned her second save in the nightcap with three scoreless innings.

Neither side recorded a strikeout in Saturday’s second game, and Tarleton’s pitchers did not have a strikeout in either contest.

TSU 10, ENMU 2 (1st game) — Pinch-hitter Jessie Thompson keyed a five-run second with a three-run homer, her first of the year, to erase an early 1-0 Zias lead.

Wood added a two-run single later in the inning. The TexAnns also got home runs from Katelyn Conlee, her 11th and third in the series, and Delaney Wayland en route to the victory.

ENMU took the lead in the first when Amanda Martinez led off with a single, took second on a sacrifice, stole third and came home on a throwing error by Wood.

ENMU kept the game alive in the fifth on a two-out RBI single by Aubrey Velasquez, but the TexAnns added one in the sixth and Fryman (19-11) got the Zias out in order in the bottom half.