Southern Miss
Northwestern State (DH)
Softball Sweeps Northwestern State, 5-0 and 8-0
3/26/2008 12:00:00 AM | Softball
March 26, 2008
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Sophomore Megan Hill had five hits, including two home runs, and drove in five runs to lead Southern Miss to a 5-0 and 8-0 doubleheader sweep of Northwestern State here Wednesday afternoon in non-conference action at the USM Softball Complex.
The Lady Eagles (16-18) tallied 21 hits in the two games as Holly Milner and Kristin Chaney added four safeties each in the twinbill.
"We have been concentrating on picking up runners in scoring position in practice and we did a better job of doing that tonight," said first-year Southern Miss coach Howard Dobson. "It was nice getting back home and with a tough part of our C-USA schedule behind us (Tulsa, East Carolina and Houston), it would be nice for us to get hot and go on a serious roll."
Junior Samantha Davis allowed just two hits and a walk in the first game over six innings with four strikeouts to earn the victory and improve to 7-7.
The Lady Eagles got all the runs they needed in the second by scoring a pair of tallies.
After a leadoff single by Logan James, Brittney Pigott tripled in the right-centerfield gap to plate the game's first run. Allison Bullard then knocked in Pigott on an infield groundout.
After capitalizing on a pair of Demon errors in the fifth that led to a solo run, Southern Miss ended its scoring with a two-run homer by Hill, her third, to leftfield in the sixth.
Katey Barr (1-8) allowed three runs (two earned) on eight hits with a strikeout over five innings to suffer the loss in the opener.
In game two, Lana Vaughn and Meghan Harbuck limited NSU to just three hits over five innings as the game was called by the run rule. Vaughn threw the first three frames, allowing just a solo hit and fanned one to get credit for the victory and improve to 4-3.
It was Hill who got the Lady Eagle offense going in the second game, as she blasted a three-run shot just inside the leftfield foul pole in the bottom of the second.
A pair of wild pitches and two errors led to three runs in the third, while Southern Miss finished the game with two more runs on a Brandi Alonzo RBI single and a misplayed ball up the middle off the bat of Ashlyn Harmon that scored a run to end the game in the fifth.
Amanda Jameson got three of the Demons' five hits in the doubleheader. NSU fell to 5-27.
The Lady Eagles return home this weekend when they entertain UAB in a C-USA three-game series at the USM Softball Complex. The two teams play a 1 p.m., twinbill on Saturday, and complete the set Sunday with a 1 p.m., single contest.
