LORMAN, Miss. – In the first conference game of the season, Prairie View A&M out-dueled the Alcorn State University softball program 3-1 Friday at the Alcorn Softball Complex.
Alcorn (2-11, 0-1 SWAC) trailed 3-0 in the seventh inning when it attempted a late rally. With two outs, sophomore
Desirea Lindsey laced a double to right center, and junior
Alexsis Ramirez followed with an RBI single up the middle. The Lady Braves brought the tying run to the plate, but the game ended on a strikeout.
"Well, I thought defensively we played a good game. We made a lot of plays. Prairie View swings it well. We left some balls up and got hurt a little bit," said Alcorn head coach
Josef Rankin.
Ramirez led Alcorn at the plate with a 2-for-3 day. Juniors
Simone McKinney and
Brittney Triplett also recorded hits.
"From an offensive standpoint, we did not have a lot of hard contact. We may have hit more fly balls in this game than we have all year. We had a little spark in the last inning, but it's up to us to play with that energy all the time. We should be exhausted because I am so invested into every pitch," Rankin said.
Crystal Castillo allowed just one run for PVAMU (11-7, 1-0 SWAC) and struck out six. Both pitchers threw a complete-game as senior
Paige Taylor surrendered three runs and struck out three.
It was scoreless until the fourth inning when Larissa Hernandez led it off with a home run for the Panthers. PVAMU tacked on another on an RBI hit by Gabrielle Fonseca, and added an insurance run in the seventh on a hit by Daneisha Hinton.
Neither team committed an error in the game.
The Lady Braves are now 14-9 all-time against the Panthers. It was the first meeting between the two teams since 2016.
"Our goal is to always win the series. We have to put our adjustments we've talked about into action and come out tomorrow and find a way to win two games," Rankin said.
Alcorn and PVAMU will close out the series Saturday with a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m.
#FearTheBrave
