ADA, Okla. – A walk-off run in the bottom of the seventh by East Central clinched the series for the Tigers as Henderson State fell 1-0 in the rubber match.
The Reddies (15-18, 7-10) will resume GAC action at home when Harding visits Dee White Field for a weekend series on Friday, Mar. 31 at 5 p.m.
Meagan Allen got the start in the circle and went 6.0 innings with two strikeouts and gave up one run on four hits. The HSU bats logged two hits off the bat of
Abbie Moore and
Raylee Carey and worked one walk as a team.
The Reddies threatened early in the top of the first after a pair of mistakes by East Central resulted in the bases being loaded by HSU. The Tigers committed their first error of the game, and a walked batter juiced the bases, but the ECU pitcher worked out of the jam to strand the runners.
Allen started strong in the circle, keeping the Tigers scoreless through six innings, and limited ECU to two hits in five innings. East Central's bats made noise in the fourth inning, logging back-to-back knocks, however, Allen would strand the pair after getting a lineout to first base.
Henderson's struggles at the plate continued in the sixth and seventh innings, recording just one hit and leaving two runners on the base path across the two frames. HSU had Moore on second with no outs to start the sixth inning, though the senior would not advance any further with three straight pop-ups to end the inning.
The Tigers began the bottom of the seventh with a lead-off double, and the Reddies' only error of the game allowed the following batter to reach first safely and advance the lead-off hitter to third with zero outs. A walk-off fielder's choice on the next at-bat scored the runner on third to win the game 1-0.