EAST PEORIA, Ill. – Behind a three-hit shutout by
Bryn Wooldridge (Salisbury, Mo./Salisbury), Missouri S&T picked up its second straight win at the Great Lakes Valley Conference Softball Championships with a 3-0 win over Drury at EastSide Centre Friday evening.
The victory marked the first time since the Miners (25-31) became a member of the GLVC in 2006 that they have won their first two games at the conference tournament and marks just the third time in program history that a Miner team has won its first two contests in a post-season tournament. S&T won its first two games in tournaments in 1989 and 1990 as a member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association.
Friday's victory sends S&T into a game Saturday at noon against the winner of the game between McKendree and Missouri-St. Louis that will take place at 9 a.m., as the schedule for Saturday's game were adjusted with the threat of storms late Saturday afternoon.
Wooldridge walked the first two hitters she faced Friday, but got out of the inning unscathed and followed it up by sparking a two-out uprising in the bottom half of the inning that put S&T on the scoreboard. Her two-out single was followed by a walk to
Sydney Anderson (Elkhart, IA/North Polk), then
Ty Neal's (Enid, OK/Kremlin-Hilldale) grounder was mishandled by Drury's shortstop and that allowed Wooldridge to come home with the first run of the game.
The Miners scored again in the third when
Elizabeth Viox (Glen Carbon, Ill./Edwardsville) doubled over the head of the right fielder, then with two outs, Anderson slammed a 3-0 pitch to the fence in left to score Viox. The double was also a record-tying hit for Anderson, as she tied Kandi Wieberg's single-season mark with her 21
st of the season.
The Panthers (30-24) had only four baserunners after the first inning and had only one of them reach second, which happened in the sixth inning. Drury got a two-out hit from Lauren Beier and Taylor Hartsell drew a walk, but Wooldridge got AJ Agers to line out to short to end the inning.
After the Miners tacked on an insurance run in the sixth, which scored when pinch-runner
Emma Vaughn (Pevely, Mo./Herculaneum) scored on a wild pitch after Wooldridge had doubled to open the inning, the Panthers got their leadoff hitter on in the seventh. However, Kaley Adzick lined into a double play and Wooldridge – who had two of S&T's five hits -- got Gracie Thomas on a pop-up to end the game.
