Three straight home runs power Wichita State softball to AAC series sweep of Houston
It was only fitting for the Wichita State softball team to use the long ball to punctuate a Game 3 victory and road series sweep of Houston on Saturday.
Addison Barnard, Lauren Lucas and Zoe Jones went back-to-back-to-back for the Shockers in the fifth inning of Saturday’s series finale, as the Shockers held on for an 8-7 victory over Houston.
It was an important road series sweep over a Houston team that is currently third place in the American Athletic Conference standings, while WSU (24-13, 7-2 AAC) kept within striking distance of first place UCF (36-10, 8-0 AAC) in the conference standings.
WSU picked up a 10-1 run-rule victory over Houston to start the series on Thursday, highlighted by a brilliant outing from freshman Alison Cooper in the circle. The Texas native allowed no earned run in six innings of work, striking out four and giving up just two hits. She received more than enough support from the offense, as Jones (3), Barnard (2), Lucas (2) and Lainee Brown (2) all had multi-RBI games.
The brilliance of Sydney McKinney was on full display of WSU’s 7-3 win on Friday, as the junior standout went 4-for-5 at the plate with two home runs. She is now hitting .484 on the season and one of the top hitters in college softball in the country.
The win on Saturday took a little more work, as Houston led 5-3 after three innings. But Wylie Glover clawed back a run for the Shockers in the fourth on a ground-out RBI, then Barnard, Lucas and Jones strung together home runs to start the fifth inning to put WSU in front. Houston responded with a home run of its own in the bottom of the seventh inning, but Caitlin Bingham registered the final 13 outs of the game to pick up her 10th win of the season.
Wichita State will return home to host Kansas at 6 p.m. Wednesday, then host Memphis for an AAC weekend series beginning with Friday’s 6 p.m. game.
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