The Lady Bisons softball team started their season on Saturday, Feb. 4, winning both games of a two-game series at home against Missouri Science & Technology. The team won the first game 7-6 and game two 11-4.
“It’s good to get off to a good start and get a couple wins under our belt,” head coach Phil Berry said. “It’s always nice when you get wins when you maybe don’t play your best, but you still fight hard and the kids do what they’re supposed to do.”
Playing in her first ever college games, freshman pitcher Autumn Humes had an impressive day with an RBI single and a save in game one. She then went on to pitch the entire second game, only allowing S&T to score four run, and hit two more RBIs.
“We have a lot of work to put in but also it’s a really good way to start your season,” Humes said. “Games like that help us get into the post-season later.”
Berry said that one of the hardest things to do is refocus after game one and prepare for game two.
“I thought Autumn Humes did a good job at finishing game one and stepping up in game two and settling them (S&T) down, after they kind of made a run at us in game one, and keeping it quiet for a while so we could get our offense rolling and get the win in game two,” Berry said.
Sophomore shortstop and third baseman Alexus Lawellin said she was very happy to see how strong the team’s bats were, as that was something the team worked hard to improve in the fall.
“We’ve usually been a really speedy team and just laying bunts down but now we have that, and we have the middle of our lineup like Mackenzie Jones, Kimmy (Hendricks) and Autumn (Humes) and they’re just bringing us all in and getting really big hits for us,” Lawellin said.
Lawellin went a combined 4-6 with two runs and three RBI’s on Saturday.
Another high point of the series, and the highlight of the entire day according to coach Berry, was freshman infielder and outfielder Lexi Ruff hitting a three run home run on her first hit at the collegiate level, giving the Lady Bisons a 5-0 lead going into the fourth inning of game two.
The Lady Bisons continue their season next weekend at the Division II University of Arkansas-Monticello Softball Challenge in Bentonville, Arkansas. They will play University of Missouri – St. Louis at 11 a.m. and Missouri Western State University at 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 10, and then continue the next day with games against Northwest Missouri State University at 10 a.m. and Pittsburg State University at 1 p.m.
