The WTAMU Lady Buffs softball team swept two teams over the weekend to advance to 14-1. They defeated University of Texas-Permian Basin in two contests on Saturday, March 2, 6-4 and 10-2, and St. Edwards University in two contests the next day 5-3 and 14-9, to sweep both opponents at Schaffer Park.
In the first matchup of the weekend, sophomore pitcher Amber Spencer had three strikeouts during the game while her relief, freshman pitcher Lauren Heinrich, had two strikeouts. On the slugging side of the inning, junior infielder Alyssa Lemos hit two home runs, one in the fourth inning and the sixth, while junior infielder Jessica Sipe hit a home run of her own in the third inning.
“There were runners on base, so my plan up there was to find my pitch and hit it as hard as I can and it just happened to go out,” Sipe said.
Lemos and Sipe had three RBIs respectively as the Lady Buffs won that matchup 6-4. Sophomore pitcher Amber Spencer had three strikeouts during the game while her relief, freshman pitcher Lauren Heinrich, had two strikeouts.
In the second matchup of Saturday’s double header, the Lady Buffs continued the momentum from the first matchup and scored four runs in the first inning off of three hits and one error. The Lady Buffs scored runs in all but one inning and Lemos had two more RBIs.
“Alyssa’s been hitting the ball really well to this point,” Head Coach Kevin Blaskowski said. “She is making solid contact, she uses good mechanics [and] she uses the whole field. I couldn’t be happier for her. She’s not your prototypical lead off kid. She’s more of a power type kid.”
St. Edwards University kept both games interesting in Sunday’s doubleheader. With the score set at 2-3 with two outs at the bottom of the seventh inning, Sipe would hit her second home run of the weekend and score three RBIs in the process to make the score 5-3 to win the game.
Sipe said with the long break from road games and the recent blizzard, the Lady Buffs were a little rusty.
“I think with the first game we did have a long break so we were just breaking off some of the rust,” Sipe said. “I think by the second game the first game lit a fire under us so we were just ready to come out and play harder than before.”
The second game of Sunday’s double header against St. Edwards included home runs by senior outfielders Meghan Slattery and Lacey Seidl and senior infielder Mercedes Garcia. Sophomore infielder Allie Cranfill would finish with four RBIs on the day, Lemos would have three, and Seidle would have two. Freshman catcher Lacey Taylor, Slattery, Garcia and Sipe would all have an RBI of their own.
Even though the Lady Buffs had two double digit scoring games, Blaskowski wants to see more consistency with the offense.
“We are a power hitting team,” Blaskowski said. “We are forcing it right now. We have 20 home runs [as of Saturday, March 2] at this point in time in the season. We kind of rely on the long ball at times. It is not something we really try to do, we just try to make solid contact and hit through the middle of the ball. We are fortunate that we got the kids in the line up that use good mechanics. We got to be a better offensive team than them.”
