TYLER, TEXAS - #3 UT Tyler swept Western Oregon in their 2023 home openers on Saturday afternoon at Irwin Ballpark with 8-0 and 6-4 victories.
Junior
Tatum Goff tossed her second complete game shutout of the year in an 8-0 run-rule of the Wolves in game one, and junior
Courtney Plocheck went 3-for-4 with a two-run homer to put a charge into the Patriot lineup for a 6-4 comeback victory in game two.
Goff fanned five batters and scattered four hits to move to 4-0 on the year with six complete innings of work in the first of two against Western Oregon. The UT Tyler offense struck for eight runs on nine hits to support the stellar effort from Goff, including a pair of multi-hit efforts from sophomore
JT Smith and junior
Michelle Arias.
UT Tyler got started quickly offensively with a two-out RBI double from junior
Audrey Escamilla that plated sophomore
Cassidi Mullen, and then quickly made it 4-0 after two with a trio of runs in the bottom of the second. The Patriots took advantage of a wild pitch by the Wolves to double the advantage before sophomore
Maddie Melton scored a pair of Patriots on a two-out single that scored Mullen and Smith.
Smith finished game one 2-for-2 at the plate with two runs and a pair of stolen bases, and added the fifth run of the ballgame in the fourth by advancing home on a stolen base attempt from Plocheck. Sophomore
Sam Schott made it 6-0 following that run with an RBI single to leftfield.
UT Tyler ended the ballgame in the bottom of the sixth with a pair of two-out RBI doubles from Goff and Arias to make it 8-0. The Patriots scored six of their eight runs in the ballgame with two outs on the board, and finished the game with four extra-base hits.
Western Oregon jumped out to a 3-0 lead in their first two trips to the plate in game two, before sophomore
Kaylee Davis entered the circle and effectively shutdown the Wolves offense from that point forward. Davis was credited with the victory after coming on in the top of the second, and went the final 6.0 innings of work without conceding a single earned run.
Senior
Avery Farr was inches away from a homer on an RBI double off the top of the leftfield wall in the bottom of the second to plate Schott to make it 3-1. UT Tyler flipped the script of the game from that point forward on the back of Davis in the circle, and struck for three runs in the bottom of the third to make it 4-3.
Plocheck knocked in the first run of the frame on an RBI single to right, and then came around to score alongside Mullen on a Schott double to left center that provided the go-ahead run and made it 4-3. That momentum continued into the next trip to the plate for UT Tyler as Plocheck hit a two-run homer to left that scored Mullen once again and made it 6-3.
An unearned run in the top of the fifth was all Western Oregon could muster offensively against Davis, who stranded a pair of singles in the sixth and then closed the door on the game and the day in the seventh with three straight outs.
The Venus, Texas native struckout six in her 6.0 innings of relief, and stranded seven Western Oregon baserunners in the process. Plocheck scored twice and drove in three runs on that 3-for-4 effort at the plate, while Scott joined Plocheck with multi-RBI on the afternoon with two.
UT Tyler scored six runs off eight hits in the 6-4 win in game two, and moves to 6-1 on the year with the pair of victories.
The Patriots and Wolves will close out the three-game series tomorrow morning with an 11 a.m. first pitch back on the diamond at Irwin Ballpark.
