Softball: Aggies win one in a blowout, one in a thriller

College Station – The No. 8 Texas A&M softball team had one blowout and one thriller on Saturday afternoon’s doubleheader of the 2014 Aggie Classic. In the opening game, the Aggies run ruled McNeese State 11-3 in five innings, while needing a walk-off double to defeat Oregon State in the nightcap 5-4. With these results, the Aggies are now 9-1 on the season and 3-1 in the Aggie Classic.

It was a very strange first game for the Aggies right from the get go. After April Ryan singled as the second batter of the day, a couple of illegal pitches advanced her all the way home, one of which would have been a strikeout ending the inning.

The McNeese State Cowgirls responded with a home run in the top of the second by Kim Kennedy, but when the Aggies came up to bat again, the illegal pitches continued. After four more illegal pitches in the inning, resulting in walks and runners advancing, Cassie Tysarczyk scored, and that was the end of the day for pitcher Emily Vincent. Her day ended with a grand total of seven illegal pitches, essentially scoring both of A&M’s runs.

Victoria King Third baseman, Amber Garza had 3 RBI's in Saturday's win over McNeese State, including one home run. {"Module":"photo","Alignment":"left","Size":"large","Caption":"Third baseman, Amber Garza had 3 RBI\u0027s in Saturday\u0027s win over McNeese State, including one home run.","MediaItemID":32693}

“It was a circus,” said Evans. “It was crazy what was going on out there with all the timeouts and delays. There was no tempo to the game and there were a lot of distractions. I thought our kids did a really nice job of not paying attention to any of that and taking advantage of all the opportunities they had.”

From then on, the Aggies let their offense, and not illegal pitches, do the talking. After the Cowgirls tied the game at three with some timely hitting and sacrifices, the home runs started coming to put this game away. In the bottom of the third, Amber Garza hit a two-run shot off of Rachel Smith, and then Cali Lanphear joined the fun with a two-run homer of her own to put the Aggies up 7-3. The next time up, Garza hit in another run off a single, and then Cassie Tysarczyk hit a three run shot to right field, and that was all she wrote. The final score was 11-3 in favor of the Aggies, ending in a five-inning mercy rule.

The second game of the doubleheader didn’t get any more normal. Oregon State’s pitcher, Sarah Shadinger, opened the game with eight straight balls, meaning two walks. After a hit by Nicole Morgan, Shadinger walked another batter, walking in A&M’s first run of the day. When it was all said and done, Oregon State ended up walking in three of A&M’s five runs.

However, the Aggies did not take enough advantage of all the freebies. Within the first three innings, the Aggies left nine runners on the bases. You can’t leave any more runners on in the course of the game. That came back to haunt them.

In the top of the sixth inning, Oregon State’s Alexis Gonzalez bombed a three run homerun off Katie Marks to tie the game. The bases were loaded soon after that homerun, but the Aggies managed to escape more damage and we had a tie game heading into the seventh inning. With one out and a runner on second, Cali Lanphear belted a double off of Amanda Nadjek and that ended the game. Taran Tyler scored easily and the Aggies sealed the victory.

“It says a lot about her that she can dig in at that at-bat, that so far this season has been her biggest hit and get us that win,” Evans said of her sophomore Lanphear.

The Aggies finish the tournament tomorrow against Tulsa, who is 4-0 in the tournament so far. First pitch is at 12:15 tomorrow afternoon at the Aggie Softball Complex.