Texas A&M softball sweeps Saturday doubleheader at No. 11 Kentucky
No. 24 Texas A&M erupted with 24 runs and five homers across Saturday’s doubleheader sweep of No. 11 Kentucky in Lexington.
Game 1: Texas A&M 14, Kentucky 13
The Aggies ended Kentucky’s eight-game winning streak in comeback fashion with a 14-13 win to start the day.
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Emily Leavitt started in the circle for the Maroon & White and dealt with early traffic. Facing a bases-loaded jam with no outs, a run-scoring double broke the ice before a grand slam by Grace Lorsung gave Kentucky a 5-0 lead.
A&M soon got a big opportunity of their own.
With the bases loaded, Rylen Wiggins singled up the middle to bring home Trinity Cannon. Grace Uribe’s sacrifice fly added another run, and Amari Harper scored on a wild pitch to cut the deficit down to 5-3.
After her leadoff single in the fourth, Koko Wooley crossed home on Aiyana Coleman’s home run over the scoreboard to even the game.
But the Wildcats continued to claw away as they added two runs in the bottom of the frame.
A sac fly by Trinity Cannon shaved the lead once again, but the Wildcats took advantage of back-to-back errors to stretch their edge to 11-6 with a three-run double and RBI single.
The back-and-forth affair carried on as Williams singled to right field to score Wiggins.
Another two-run single swayed momentum in favor of A&M as the sixth inning came to a close.
A five-spot in the seventh powered by homers from Cannon and Williams finally put the Aggies out in front for good even after Lorsung hit her second homer of the game for Kentucky.
“Coming back against Kentucky and seeing those five runs in the first inning, we weren’t too afraid, nothing like that,” Williams said. “We knew that we needed to step up, and I feel like once we got our swings going, once we got people on bases, that’s when we started getting all those runs in.”
Game 2: Texas A&M 10, Kentucky 0 (Five innings)
A&M maintained control of the entire second game with a 10-0 run-rule victory in just five innings.
“Today I thought we did a heck of a job of taking care of business and sticking to the plan,” Ford said. “We’re very capable of it, these are hard games. These are conference games, and they’re going to be battles.
“What I was really happy with was game two, coming back out and setting the tone from the very get-go and just not letting up.”
Julia Cottrill doubled to left field and scored on Cannon’s single to give the Aggies a 1-0 lead in the first.
In the third, Wooley doubled down the left-field line to score two runs before Cannon was brought home on an RBI groundout.
A&M’s relentless attack continued with Williams hitting her second three-run bomb of the day to push the lead to 7-0. With Kentucky struggling to find effective pitching, Cannon’s sac fly added another run.
Amari Harper doubled to right field and scored after Wiggins singled. A&M’s dominating performance was capped off with Coleman’s homer to right center.
Pitchers Grace Uribe and Leavitt combined for the shutout, with Uribe yielding all three hits.
Looking for the series sweep, the Aggies and Wildcats return tomorrow at 12 p.m. CT to close the weekend.