TYLER, Texas –
Anissa Garcia hit a two-run double and
Summer Harper smashed her fifth home run in her last 10 games to help the Concordia Texas softball team win their opening game of the American Southwest Conference Tournament Thursday 4-2 over Louisiana College at Suddenlink Field hosted by UT Tyler.
The win for the Tornados (24-16) is the first win in the ASC Tournament since 2000 when they advanced all the way to the championship game before falling to East Texas Baptist. It also puts CTX in a tie for the third-most wins in school history and just one short of the school record of 25 set in 2013.
In the circle,
Jorden Russell picked up her 10th win of the season after allowing just six hits, two runs and striking out five. Russell, a junior from Leander, Texas, became just the second pitcher in school history to amass at least 100 strikeouts in a season in the win.
Louisiana College jumped ahead early with a run in the first inning on a squeeze bunt to move ahead 1-0.
CTX answered with a run of their own in the fourth thanks to an RBI single off the bat of Russell.
In the fifth, the Tornados got a leadoff single by
Mycahla Howard and
Haley Dennett was hit by a pitch to put two runners on for Garcia. The freshman from Corpus Christi, Texas, promptly ripped a double down the left field line to make the score 3-1.
Howard, a junior from Santa Fe, Texas, finished the game 3-for-3 with a double.
Russell ran into trouble in the fifth when the Wildcats loaded the bases with one away but got out of trouble with back-to-back strikeouts.
Harper, a sophomore out of Cypress, Texas, then added an insurance run with her sixth homer of the season in the fifth to extend the lead to six.
LC cut the lead to two with a run in the sixth, but could not add any more as Russell retired the last four batters she faced to seal the win.
With the victory, CTX advances to the double-elimination portion of the bracket which begins Friday at 10:00 a.m. against the No. 2 seed ETBU. The winner of the CTX-ETBU game will advance to play in the winner's bracket game at 7:00 p.m. while the loser will play at 4:00 p.m.
