Alabama
Southern Miss
Alabama Softball Wins Road Contest Over Southern Miss, 7-1
4/12/2016 12:00:00 AM | Softball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Alabama softball notched its sixth-straight win Tuesday night on the road, defeating Southern Miss, 7-1.
Alabama (36-7) scored seven runs on just four hits, with just two of the seven runs going down as earned runs as a pair of fielding errors proved costly for Southern Miss (20-23). Reagan Dykes went 1-3 to extend her hitting streak to nine games, the longest for any Tide player this season, while Chandler Dare went 1-4 with two RBIs to push her own streak to six games. Peyton Grantham and Merris Schroder scored twice from the bottom of the order, each driving in a run as well.
Alexis Osorio (11-5) threw a complete game in the circle, taking a shutout through 6.2 innings before the Golden Eagles brought one across on an RBI double. She struck out 10 batters, her fourth game with double-digit strikeouts. Southern Miss starter Danielle Block (5-10) was chased after 3.0 innings, though only one of the six runs credited to her was earned.
Following a leadoff walk by Caroline Hardy in the top of the second, Dykes received a strong ovation from the crowd, a native of nearby Collins, Miss., and pulled a single through the left side to put two on with nobody out. Southern Miss center fielder Rachel Johnson made a running catch in shallow center for the first out in the next at-bat and then caught Hardy off the bag at second for a double play. A fielding error with two outs extended the inning and three-straight walks drove in Alabama's first two runs of the day before Dare doubled the lead with a two-run single to make it 4-0.
Grantham led off the top of the fourth with a line-drive home run to center field to make it a 5-0 game. A walk to Schroder in the next at-bat ended Block's outing in the circle as Jillian Johnson entered in relief for the Golden Eagles with one on and nobody out. Later with two outs and a runner at second, the USM first baseman bobbled a ground ball as Schroder came in to score from second on the error and put Alabama up 6-0.
The score remained the same until the top of the seventh when Leona Lafaele swung on the first pitch of her pinch-hit appearance and crushed the ball into left field, putting Alabama up 7-0 on the solo home run. Southern Miss erased the shutout in the bottom-half of the inning on a two-out RBI double by Lauren Holifield but a popup on the next pitch ended the game as Alabama held on for the six-run victory.
Next up, Alabama continues SEC play on the road with a three-game series against Texas A&M (31-9, 5-7 SEC) in College Station, Texas. Game one is set for a 6:30 p.m. CT start on Friday, April 15.
