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(Photo by Holly Dorn)

Softball falter against Northwestern, welcome HBU

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The Wildcats battled stiff competition when they faced conference rival Northwestern State in Abilene, as the Lady Demons bounced back to take the series, 2-1.

In the first game of the series, the Wildcats jumped on top of the Demons scoring four runs in the first two innings. Senior Peyton Hedrick singled to right field, scoring junior Donelle Johnson followed up by a two-run homerun from senior Holly for a 4-0 lead.

All was quiet on the Western front until the Demons struck three times in the seventh inning, led off by an Emma Hawthorne double that scored one run. The Demons put on two more late scores, but solid defense held off the late push to secure the win, as Hannah Null got the complete game victory.

“We need to take advantage of every person that gets on base, and we need to do better about scoring in those situations,” Hannah Null said. “We’re a tight knit team, so we have trust within each other that everyone will do their job. As long as we don’t lose that, we’ll be fine. We’re expecting to take 3 this weekend.”

In the second contest, the Demons jumped out to an early lead and cruised to a solid win. Elyssa Hernandez hit a double to left field that brought a score across the plate and Julie Rawls blasted a three-run shot pushing the lead to 4-0 after three. Madelyn Matt produced two more runs for a 6-0 lead that got all the way up to 8-0 before Hedrick scored after a fly out by freshman Briana Tijerina. Makayla Brown of Northwestern picked up her sixth win while freshman Calie Burris fell to 1-4.

“We just really need to find some consistency and make sure we are getting our jobs done when the time comes,” Brianna Barnhill said. “We need to make adjustments on offense and make sure defense continues to perform well.”

The final game of the series also went in favor of the Demons. Sidney Harris hammered a three-score homerun in the first to give her team a 3-0 lead that remained intact until Rawls doubled to right field to bring home Cayla Jones for the final score of the game.
“We started off strong the first game of the series hitting, but our bats fell a little quiet on both games on Saturday,” Holly Neese said. “We put all the hard work in that’s necessary to win. We have such an athletic and talented team that we come into the weekend expecting to win.”
The Wildcats prepare to face another conference rival in Houston Baptist this weekend. The Huskies are struggling currently at 3-16 and lost all three games in their conference opener versus Lamar, 1-7, 2-8, and 2-7.
“I think as a team we do a good job of picking each other up if someone is having a bad game or bad series,” Barnhill  said. “We remain mentally strong because we know we can compete and win, we just have to go out there and perform like we know how to.”
The Huskies are led by Junior Demi Janak with .333 batting average with two doubles, two home runs, 12 RBIs and six runs scored. Freshman Jessica Patak (1-10) has earned a 4.38 ERA with 37 strikeouts and 36 walks in 68.2 innings. Senior Stephanie Buenrostro (0-5) has a 7.58 ERA in 25.0 innings, while Elliot Estes (1-0) has a 3.55 ERA in 21.2 innings.
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