No. 2 Tide Downs Georgia Tech, 6-0
2/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Softball
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. ?? The No. 2 University of Alabama softball team took advantage of two clutch home runs offensively and rode yet another dominating performance by true freshman pitcher to ride its season-opening win streak to six with a 6-0 win over Georgia Tech in Tuscaloosa on Thursday night.
“I thought this was a great win for us tonight,” said UA head coach Patrick Murphy. “Georgia Tech has a great offense and an SEC-caliber lineup, so for Kelsi (Dunne) to go out there and shut them out this early in the season was a great feat.”
Dunne, a native of Port Orange, Fla., moved to a perfect 3-0 in her rookie season after pitching her second complete-game shutout in three starts. Dunne set a season and career mark with 12 strikeouts in the game, gave up only two hits and allowed only one walk.
The freshman hurler has yet to allow an earned run in 16 innings pitched. She has surrendered five hits on the season with only two walks and 31 strikeouts on the season.
“We have talked a lot about our pitching rotation as a staff this week because we play so many games,” Murphy said. “Even though Chrissy Owens has pitched well against Georgia Tech in the past, we wanted to give them a little bit of a different look and Kelsi really pitched well.”
Alabama drew first blood in the bottom of the second, taking advantage of two Yellow Jacket fielding errors. Kellie Eubanks singled to drive in Kelley Montalvo and Brittany Rogers drove in Ashley Holcombe with a triple to left in the bottom of the fourth to give UA a 2-0 edge.
It looked as if a low-scoring affair was in order, but the Alabama bats had some more left in them. Lauren Parker blew it open with a two-run blast to left center, driving in pinch runner Catherine Dozier to make it 4-0.
In the fifth, another true freshman, Whitney Larson, put the finishing touches on the victory. She drove a 1-0 pitch out of the park in straightaway center field to score Rogers, who scored two runs on the evening, giving Alabama a 6-0 lead. Dunne struck out two of the last three hitters to sew up the victory.
“Whitney has just been pressing a little too much,” Murphy said. “She was one of the best recruits in the nation as a high school player last year, so we know she has the ability. I just told her before the game that the hits would come and she came up big for us tonight.”
After the top of the lineup dominated the box scores for much of the first five games, the bottom half picked up the pace on Thursday, with the five-nine hitters going 8-for-12 with three RBI and three runs scored.
“The top of the lineup was good for us again, but I was really happy with the way our bottom half performed tonight,” Murphy said. “We needed them to step it up a little bit and they really did that for us.”
The Tide plays host to the Hampton Inn Crimson Classic that begins on Friday at 11 a.m. at the UA Softball Facility. Alabama’s first game of the tournament, which also features Georgia Tech, Middle Tennessee and New Mexico, begins at 4 p.m.
A complete listing of the schedule for the weekend, in addition to links to Alabama softball radio links and live stats can be found on the official Alabama athletic web site, RollTide.com.
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