STEPHENVILLE – No. 21 Tarleton pounded out 10 runs on 10 hits to take the opening-game of the series against No. 8 Texas A&M-Commerce 10-4 Thursday night.
After Commerce scored four in the top of the first, the offense went into overdrive and scored 10 unanswered runs the rest of the way while Jordan Withrow dealt her 15th win of the season.
Tarleton started to chip away into the lead right away when Elizabeth Svienty worked a leadoff walk to get the offense rolling. Georgia Capell drove her home with an RBI double and, two batters later, Destiny Crumpley followed up with an RBI two-bagger of her own to cut the deficit in half at 4-2. Amanda Conner would tack on one more with an RBI single to make it 4-3 after one.
After Withrow settled down in the second to keep the Lions off the board, Tanna Huie came up big with the game-changing three-run home run to right field to give Tarleton a 6-4 edge after two.
The score carried into the fourth when Crumpley drove in her second run of the game on a two-out single and Karli Herron cashed in big with a three-run blast of her own to deep left center field to put Tarleton on top 10-4 after four. The score held up through the end of the game.
Huie, Crumpley, and Conner each led the way with two hits each while Svienty, Capell, Herron, and Jessica Lee had one each.
After a shaky start, Withrow settled back into her groove in the circle and kept the Lions off the board for the final six innings. Withrow earned her fourth complete game victory in a row with seven innings of work while striking out five.
Withrow’s fourth strikeout of the game, which came against Commerce’s Jodie Hill, was the 500th in her illustrious Tarleton career. She joins Tarleton Hall of Famer Carla Geeslin as the only two players in program history with 500 strikeouts.
Tarleton and Commerce will resume the series tomorrow at 1 p.m. with a doubleheader in Stephenville.
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