SAN ANTONIO – St. Mary's Softball took on two top-10 teams in the country tonight as part of the Irwin Classic hosted by Texas A&M-Commerce and UT Tyler. The Rattlers opened the night be taking down No. 7 Texas A&M-Commerce before falling to No. 3 Augustana.
Game one recap
Jayme Johns extended her hitting streak to five games as the junior led off the game with a single. Johns went first-to-third when
Bari Christian singled up the middle, putting runners at the corners with one out.
Abigale Carney flipped one down the right field line to score Johns, giving the Rattlers an early 1-0 advantage.
St. Mary's starting pitcher
Alex McLennan retired the first nine batter she faced. McLennan tossed her second straight complete game and second straight two-hitter.
In the top of the fourth inning,
Tiffany Licon added a run as the launched a ball over the right field fence for her first homerun of the season. The blast gave St. Mary's a 2-0 lead.
Reba Reyes hit the first homerun of her young career as the freshman led off the fifth frame with a solo shot to make it 3-0, St. Mary's.
In the home half of the fifth, the Lions took advantage of a St. Mary's error to get a run back, making it 3-1 after five innings.
With two outs in the sixth, the Lions pitcher gave three straight free passes; a walk to Licon, a hit-by-pitch from Johns, and a walk to Reyes to load the bases. Two consecutive errors from the Lions allowed St. Mary's to plate three more runs to make it 6-1.
McLennan pitched around a leadoff single in the sixth and retired the Lions in order in the seventh to seal the win for the Rattlers.
Johns and
Alex Moreno each finished with two hits.
Game two recap
No. 3 Augustana put up five runs in the second inning to jump out to an early 5-0 lead over the Rattlers.
Johns' hitting streak was extended to six games in the top of the third inning as she roped a double to left center field, scoring Licon to cut the St. Mary's deficit to four runs.
Trailing 6-1 heading to the fifth, the Rattler offense came alive, scoring three runs on four hits.
Lauren Garcia opened the inning with a single and would move to second on a single from
Amber Gonzales. An error from the catcher put Garcia at third and Gonzales at second with nobody out.
Alyssa Flores came on to pinch hit and delivered an RBI single. After Licon reached on a fielder's choice, Johns came through with a two-RBI double to make it a 6-4 game.
Auggie added to runs in the fifth to make it an 8-4 game.
The St. Mary's offense came up empty in what would be their final at-bat of the game as the Vikings scored four in the home half of the sixth to end the game by way of the eight-run rule.
Johns finished the game 2-for-3 with three RBI.
St. Mary's will be back in action tomorrow as they Augustana at 10:30 a.m. and Texas A&M-Commerce at 4 p.m.
All action can be found on the
Lone Star Conference Network
