TYLER, TEXAS - #4 UT Tyler finished off a shutout sweep of Midwestern State on Saturday afternoon with 11-0 and 7-0 victories over the Mustangs.
 
Graduate student Shea O'Leary tossed a one-hitter in the 11-0 game one victory, striking out 10 Mustang batters while allowing just a pair of baserunners in the ballgame. Three hits from JT Smith and continued quality work in the circle from Tatum Goff and Kaylee Davis capped off the sweep with a 7-0 win in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader.
 
The Patriots outscored Midwestern State by a 26-0 total in the three games to move to 28-4 on the year and a perfect 14-0 at Irwin Ballpark. UT Tyler sits atop the Lone Star Conference regular season standings with a record of 16-2, a pair of games clear of second place West Texas A&M.
 
Midwestern State's lone hit of the first game of the day came in the top of the first on a hard-hit ball that was nearly corralled by the Patriot infield. From that point forward, O'Leary fanned 10 Midwestern State batters and conceded just a single walk to move to 6-2 on the year.
 
Sophomore Courtney Plocheck drove in the first two Patriot runs of the ballgame on RBI groundouts in the first and third frames that scored Smith each time. Plocheck finished game one with three RBI and a 1-for-2 effort at the plate.
 
Smith scored three runs in game one, scoring on all three trips to the plate for the sophomore on a trio of walks. The Decatur, Texas native paired that outing with a 3-for-4 day in game two in which she leadoff the ball game with a solo homer, and then drove in the final run of the afternoon on an RBI single.
 
UT Tyler ended game one in the fifth inning after a nine-run bottom of the fourth inning. Sophomore Sam Schott got the inning started on a bunt single that eventually scored junior Michelle Arias from first after a throwing error by the Mustangs.
 
Senior Avery Farr drove in Schott on a sac fly to right to make it 4-0 before the Patriots used plate discipline and a handful of wild pitches by the Mustangs to manufacture the next five runs without a hit to make it 8-0. A Farr two-RBI single through the right side for what would be just the third hit of the game for the Patriots made it 11-0 and enacted the run-rule heading to the top of fifth.

O'Leary retired her sixth straight batter in that fifth inning to close out what was arguably her best outing of the 2023 season.
 
Smith's solo homer to open game two got the UT Tyler offense going in the right direction early, and eventually resulted in a nine-hit performance for the club. Schott added another extra-base hit to make it 3-0 with a two-RBI double to left in the third to make it 3-0.
 
Goff, who tossed the second no-hitter of her career in Friday night's victory, scattered six hits in her 5.1 innings of work to stay unbeaten with an 18-0 record after the win. UT Tyler loaded the bases in both the fifth and sixth innings, and extended their lead to 4-0 with an RBI groundout from Schott in the sixth.
 
Junior Audrey Escamilla doubled off the wall in the ensuing at-bat to make it 6-0, and then scored on a Smith's second RBI of the day via a single to bring the score to it's eventual 7-0 final. Sophomore Kaylee Davis took over for Goff in the sixth and finished off the final two innings by allowing just a single hit and retiring six of the seven batters she faced.
 
Smith, Schott and Escamilla all posted multi-RBI efforts in game two, while Smith, Plocheck and Escamilla each notched multi-hit outings as well.
 
UT Tyler will continue Lone Star Conference play on the road Tuesday and Wednesday at Texas Woman's.