Feb. 21, 2009

Final Stats

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The Colonels picked up two wins in the Mizuno Classic on Saturday, including a 4-0 victory over Alabama State and a 6-2 win against host school Southern Miss.

In the first win of the day, the Colonels (9-4) defeated Alabama State 4-0 in large part due to junior Lacey Gros' pitching. Gros got the complete game shutout to improve to 4-2 on the season, and fanned 10 while only giving up two hits against the 24 batters that she faced.

Nicholls run support for Gros started in the bottom of the second when true freshman Kara Harrington hit a sacrifice fly to deep centerfield to plate senior Danielle Clayton. Clayton's run gave the Colonels the 1-0 lead through two complete.

The rest of the Colonels' runs came in the bottom of the third when junior Audrey Wood hit a two RBI double to left field that scored true freshman Megan Gaspard and sophomore Whitney Roan. Clayton then brought home Wood via a single to left field to give Nicholls the 4-0 advantage. Neither team scored for the remainder of the game.

Leading Nicholls at the plate were Clayton, Gaspard and Wood whom all went 2-for-3 with a run scored. Clayton had a RBI, while Wood finished with two.

In the second game, Nicholls defeated Southern Miss 6-2 with five of the runs coming in the first inning. The Colonels scored five runs on three hits in the inning. The first two in the inning came by a bases loaded walk that plated Gaspard, and the second was a hard hit ball to second base by junior Lyndsay Mesh that forced an error to allow senior Kodi Butler to score.

Senior Haley Burkett followed the error with RBI infield single to score Clayton, and then Roan hit a two RBI single up the middle to score Mesh and junior Karla Troxler to round out the inning.

Nicholls followed with a run in the bottom of the second when Clayton recorded a sacrifice fly to plate Butler and give the Colonels the 6-1 lead.

Southern Miss (5-8) added one run in the top of the seventh, but it would not be enough to send the game to extra innings. Picking up the win for Nicholls and improving to 5-2 on the season was Wood, who gave up one run on seven hits and fanned one. Butler led Nicholls at the plate, going 2-for-3 with two runs scored.

Nicholls will be back in action tomorrow in the tournament tomorrow against South Alabama at 9 a.m. and then Louisiana Tech at 2 p.m.

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