Photo by Matt Sachs, TexAgs
Texas A&M Softball
Matt Sachs, TexAgs
Sophomore pitcher Katie Marks followed up her no-hitter on Tuesday with another great performance against Oklahoma State on Friday night.
Softball: Ags use two solo-shots to beat Okie State 2-1
GAME #53: Texas A&M 2, Oklahoma State 1
RECORDS: Texas A&M 33-20, Oklahoma State 26-25
COLLEGE STATION – In either diamond sport, most games will end in a loss if your team only registers two hits.RECORDS: Texas A&M 33-20, Oklahoma State 26-25
But if both of those hits are homeruns and you also have a dominant pitcher in the circle, it’s possible to win the game.
That’s exactly what happened on Friday night as the No. 24 Texas A&M softball team used a pair of homers from Jenna Stark and Reagan Boenker, and a solid start from Katie Marks to defeat the Oklahoma State Cowgirls 2-1 at the Aggie Softball Complex. The win gives A&M a chance to sweep the two-game, non-conference series on Saturday.
Matt Sachs, TexAgs
Sophomore pitcher Katie Marks followed up her no-hitter on Tuesday with another great performance against Oklahoma State on Friday night.
“Talk about making the most of your two hits,” said Texas A&M head coach Jo Evans. “We didn’t have good at-bats our first time through, but in our second round we hit the ball hard.”
Through three and a half innings, both starting pitchers – Marks and Cowgirls’ righty Whitney Whitehorn – were on the top of their game sending batters from both teams back to the dugout left and right. In fact, it could be argued that Whitehorn was having the better performance of the night, allowing just two Aggies to reach base through her first 3.2 innings.
But with two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Whitehorn’s scoreless outing was broken up when A&M first baseman Jenna Stark took an 0-2 offering over the wall in right to give the Aggies the 1-0 lead. The line-drive scorcher was Stark’s seventh homerun on the season.
“I thought Jenna did a great job just to hit the ball hard somewhere,” stated Evans. “She got all of it. Any time our kids go opposite field and hit it hard like that is great.”
After the Stark homerun, the Cowgirls opted to change pitchers and brought in Australian righty Simone Freeman in relief to start the bottom of the fifth. However, the change didn’t do much good as A&M freshman Reagan Boenker – the first batter of the night for Freeman – launched a towering shot to left-center and out of play for the 2-0 advantage.
The fifth inning homerun was the very first of her career for the Bryan High product.
“I couldn’t be happier for that kid,” said Evans of her freshman. “She really managed the strike zone. That says a lot about her as a hitter and recognizing what she can and can’t hit, and really taking advantage of something that she squared up there.”
She had all her good stuff. She hit her spots and made very few mistakes the entire night. She pitched a gem of a game.
In the top of the sixth, Oklahoma State answered back with a two-out solo homerun of their own from Tiffany Mikkelson, but Marks calmly gathered herself, recorded a strikeout to end the sixth and then threw a scoreless seventh to pick up her 15th victory of the season.
In all, Marks threw a complete seven innings, giving up six hits while striking out four and gave up just the one run on a total of 78 pitches.
“She had all her good stuff,” Evans said of Marks. “She hit her spots and made very few mistakes the entire night. She pitched a gem of a game.”
The Aggies now wrap up the regular season on Saturday with game two of the series against Oklahoma State. Although the team should still have the NCAA Tournament to come, it will be the final home game for a talented group of A&M seniors. First pitch of the season finale comes at 4 p.m. with Senior Day festivities immediately following the game.
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