Story by Britton Barnette / Contributing Writer
Kaylee Richetto led the way on offense with two RBIs; and Gretchen Meade gets the win from the mound after pitching three innings with only three hits allowed off the 13 batters she faced, with one of those hits being a solo home run in the first by Austin Peay’s Bailey Shorter. Claire Woods got her second save of the season and ended the game with Austin Peay stuck on third.
“A win is a win, I’m glad we won,” said head coach Jeff Breeden. “We are scrappy all the time. If you followed our scores there are low scoring games. We just try to hang around and score enough to do it, and tonight we did.”
“It feels really good to trust my defense behind me,” said Gretchen Meade after the win. “I can give up a few dinky hits here and there and trust that they can make outs behind me.”
The Blue Raiders started off behind 1-0 following the home run in the top of the first. While they failed to return the favor in the first, Richetto hit a rocket to the right field wall and sent Kelci Hill and Lani Rodriguez home, putting the Blue Raiders up 2-1 in the bottom of the second.
The Blue Raiders were aggressive at the plate, and while only managing six hits all game, they were able to get four runs out of their efforts.
“We’ve been working a lot on getting on the line and just hitting the first pitch, basically,” said Kelci Hill. “Our plan today was to go after the first mistake, so we were swinging at all first pitch strikes. So it worked out a lot, and it didn’t work out a lot.”
On defense, the Blue Raiders kept getting into trouble with letting Austin Peay on base, but kept finding ways to get out clean.
“We lived with a lot of baserunners,” said Coach Breeden. “Austin Peay had a lot of base runners tonight with low out counts, so we were living kind of dangerously the whole night with nobody out or one out with runners in scoring position. I thought our defense played well in those kinds of situations, and our pitching helped us out.”
Both sides were able to bag a run in the third, with Austin Peay’s Lexi Oswoski sending Megan Hodum home with a right field double. The Blue Raiders countered with a Kelci Hill single up the middle to send Laura Mealer to home and give her squad a 3-2 lead heading into the fourth.
The next few innings remained scoreless until the sixth inning when Shelby Sargent got on base after an error by Austin Peay, which allowed Lani Rodriguez to get home for the second time.
The Blue Raiders ended the 4-2 win with six hits to Austin Peay’s eight, and threw five strikeouts while only letting Austin Peay strike them out twice.
“I thought Meade came in and pitched well tonight,” said Coach Breeden. “I thought Woods when she came in and closed that save right there she was throwing really good. She hit 65 on the gun a couple of times, so we need that to continue to happen. Overall just a good win.”
The Blue Raiders begin conference play this weekend as they welcome Southern Miss on Friday to begin their first series of the season.
