There’s no place like home, especially for the NMSU softball team, who returned to Las Cruces after spending the previous week in Miami. The Aggies are currently settled in the fourth seed spot in Conference USA, but with their successful weekend, they put themselves in a position to leapfrog over Florida International and Louisiana Tech for the second seed spot. But to do that, they needed 110% from everyone.
Friday’s first game against the Bearcats put Desirae Spearman on the mound after she put in two complete game performances the previous weekend. Pitching 21 straight innings is hard enough, but getting run support from the offense makes the job a little easier.
Things got off to rough start for Spearman, as she gave up two runs in the second inning off a Samantha Graeter home run before a base hit by Bearcats’ Jenny Robison added two more in the third. Luckily, the Aggies bats were there to help with Riley Carley’s base hit, which brought in the first run-in inning before Tamara Carranza’s three run home run in. That got the run total to eight.
With Spearman shutting out Sam Houston for the rest of the game, the Aggies grabbed the win and started the weekend off strong.
On the mound Saturday was Faith Aragon (4.06 ERA) and three innings in, she had a shutout against the Bearcats– the only thing left was for the Aggies to score. Devin Elam answered, bringing in a run with a base hit in the third before hitting a double to add two more in the fifth before Carley added another. A Kristiana Watson double put the total at six runs before the sixth inning.
Spearman finished things off with a two run home run in the sixth, which ended the game early. On the mound, Aragon finished her complete game shutout performance with nine total strikeouts as the Aggies move to a 2-0 series lead.
Sunday was the second game Aragon would start. This time, the Aggies got the scoring started early with a Lauren Garcia hit to center field which brought in the first run of the game after yet another scoreless inning from the Bearcats. Scoring took a break as the shutout continued for Aragon. Sam Houston was able to keep the Aggies from scoring before a fourth inning double from Tamara Carranza turned into a triple until after a fielding error from Carley brought her in for the score. Aragon protected the lead again with another three up, three down quick inning.
Sunday’s fifth inning had more Aggie action with runners getting into scoring position before another sacrifice fly became another run scored due to an error from the Bearcats. Six innings in and Aragon had only allowed two hits, had four strikeouts and only one walk with only one more to go. The Aggies finally had a dry inning with no scoring.
In order to seal a victory, the inning went as a base hit, a strikeout swinging, a fly out and finally another strikeout for Sam Houston and Aragon went 13 innings across two complete games. This was something that she commented on after the game.
“The umpire had a big strike zone. I think I was able to take advantage of it,” she said. “We haven’t really seen that throughout the season, so I think that was probably the biggest thing I was able to take advantage of.”
As far as making sure their arms last an entire game, Aragon credited their [the Aggies] endurance to practice.
“We definitely practice exactly for this. We practice to get through an entire game if we can,” she said.
In addition to getting the sweep, NMSU head coach Kathy Rudolph was proud of the performance on the mound, but was also glad to have the home field advantage.
“Just sleeping in your own bed and knowing how your field plays and your fans and everything else just gave us the boost that I hoped,” Rudolph said. “Faith pitched great all weekend long…I was super proud of her ability to really mix it up and keep us from having a lot of traffic in base.”
Even though she’s happy with the win and sweep, Rudolph is looking ahead to their date with UTEP next weekend in El Paso.
“Anytime we’re going to play UTEP or UNM it’s definitely a rivalry series. We’re going to bring our best, they’re going to bring their best,” she said. “We need to be able to attack early. We don’t want to go deep into the game with UTEP, they swing it and they’re going to come out fighting for their life offensively.”
The next series for the Aggies is the Battle of I-10, with the first game on Friday, April 3 at 6 p.m.
