HOUSTON – Sophomore Kayla Gonzales (San Antonio, Texas) blasted a pair of homers, drove in seven runs and helped lead the way as the Texas A&M-Kingsville softball team trounced the Southeastern Oklahoma State Savage Storm, 15-4, on Saturday night in Houston on day two of the Arkansas Tech Winter Invitational.
Through two days, both TAMUK and SEOSU own 1-1 records.
"Our offense was much better today," said coach Craig Nicholson, "and we were solid defensively. Still some small things to clean up on that side of the ball but a much better effort today and we got another well-pitched game against a good hitting team."
Only one run came across in the first two stanzas and it was the result of a Gonzales sacrifice fly that plated senior Loren Kelly (Rockport, Texas).
In the third, Gonzales struck for her first long ball, sending a two-run dinger over the wall in left-center for a 3-0 lead. SEOSU got on the board for the first time in their half of the third, but TAMUK's offense responded by blowing the game open.
The top of the fourth began with a pair of doubles, courtesy junior Matisen Onofrei (Mesa, Ariz.) and sophomore Natalie Rodriguez (Edinburg, Texas) to make the score 4-1 and junior Jackie De Los Santos (Kingsville, Texas) laced an RBI triple into right two batters later. TAMUK then put one more runner on to bring up Kelly, who whacked a three-bagger of her own to push across two more tallies. An RBI safety by Gonzales and a steal of home by junior Jory Cervantes (Pflugerville, Texas) capped a six-run fourth that made the score 9-1.
Three runs for the Savage Storm cut the Javs' lead to five, but the Blue and Gold got all those runs back in the fifth when De Los Santos came up with two on and hit another bullet into right for her second triple of the night and also scored on the play due to an error. Later in the frame, a pair of two out walks brought up Gonzales and she capped the scoring by walloping her second homer of the night. Junior Saidi Castillo (Kingsville, Texas), who went the distance for TAMUK, ended the game with a scoreless bottom of the fifth.
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