Texas A&M
Kent State
No. 17 A&M Softball Takes Two on Saturday
Mar 07, 2009 | Softball
March 7, 2009
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The 17th-ranked Texas A&M softball team secured two wins on Saturday at the Aggie Invitational presented by the City of College Station. In front of 1,544 fans the Aggies (17-8) breezed by Kent State, 5-0, and battled for a 7-5 win over Utah in extra innings.
Freshman pitcher Rebecca Arbino earned her first shutout and struck out a career-high nine to pick up the victory against the Golden Flashes (5-9). A native of Clovis, Calif., Arbino gave up just two hits and allowed no walks. Sophomore Rhi Kliesing threw eight innings to garner her second win in two days against the Utes (10-14).
In the first game, Kent State pitcher Kylie Reynolds controlled the first three innings, fanning eight Aggies to keep the game scoreless.
The Aggies started hitting Reynolds in the fourth, but left the bases loaded after a fielder's choice by junior Alex Reynolds and back-to-back singles by Kliesing and freshman Taryn Broussard.
Patience allowed freshman Eden Morris who replaced an injured Macie Morrow after her own foul ball struck her in the face. With runners on second and third, senior Holly Ridley laced a triple off the wall in center field to score Orsak and Spittler. Senior Erin Glasco then put the Aggies up 3-0 off of a line-drive sacrifice fly to right.
In the sixth, Kliesing hit a lead-off single to right before Broussard ripped a double to right center that scored pinch runner Andrea Tovar from first. Spittler made it 5-0 with a sacrifice fly to center.
"( Kylie) Reynolds was giving us fits," said head coach Jo Evans. "She had good movement on all of her pitches, so that was tough on us, but we showed good patience.
"I was excited about Becca's start. That's the best game she's thrown. She looked really comfortable and poised, and really had a great presence in the circle."
A&M jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead in the first as the visitors against the Utes. From the two hole, Orsak reached base on a Utah error and moved to second on a single to right by Ridley. Glasco followed with a worm-burner up the middle to plate Orsak.
Two solo home runs by Kara Foster in the third and Whitney Holm in the fourth moved the Utes into the lead, 2-1.
In the top of the fifth, A&M loaded the bases on three straight walks before Reynolds and Kliesing hit back-to-back RBI singles. Broussard then drew an RBI walk to score Glasco and put the Aggies up by two, 4-2.
Utah came within one run in the bottom of the fifth off of three consecutive singles by Brooke Olson, Kara Foster and Staci Hemingway.
Glasco and Reynolds led off the seventh with back-to-back singles. Both runners moved up a base on a wild pitch and Kliesing plated an insurance run off of a sacrifice fly to left.
Utah battled back and loaded the bases for the second straight inning in the bottom of the seventh. A two-run single by Holm tied the game at five apiece and forced extra innings.
With the tiebreaker rule in effect in the top of the eighth, junior Bailey Schroeder started the inning on second base and was sacrifice to third by Morris. Spittler hit a triple that rolled all the way to the left-center wall to plate Schroeder and Orsak's RBI single to shallow left field put the Aggies back on top, 7-5.
"I'm proud of our team tonight, that win was not easy," said Evans. "Utah hit the ball hard. The difference in our team is that two weeks ago we would have lost that game. It says a lot that when we didn't play our best, we still came back and kept fighting and fighting and fighting."
On the day four Aggies tallied three hits with two RBIs including Glasco, Broussard, Kliesing and Ridley.
A&M wraps up the Aggie Invitational with two games on Sunday. First pitch for the Aggies is at 2:30 p.m. against Louisiana Tech and the final game of the tournament is set for 4:45 p.m. versus Stephen F. Austin.
