Rough weekend for Eastern softball

PORTALES — Though the weather was decent, it wasn’t an especially pleasant weekend for Eastern New Mexico’s softball team.

Saturday at Greyhound Field, Cameron completed a three-game series sweep of the Hounds by taking both ends of a doubleheader, 6-2 and 11-3.

Eastern (10-13) never led at any point throughout the day, but found ways to consistently get runners on base all afternoon. ENMU finished the day with 12 hits combined in the two games, led by junior Elysa Rodriguez, who went 4-for-7 on the afternoon, including a triple and a run scored.

Rodriguez crossed home plate to get the Greyhounds on the board in the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 1, thanks to a sacrifice fly to right field from junior Samantha Brockman. That run narrowed the deficit to 5-1 before Cameron quickly answered with a run of its own in the top half of the following inning.

Senior Karina Moreno kept the offensive momentum generated by both teams rolling in the bottom of the sixth with a solo home run to right center that drew the score to 6-2. Three consecutive outs in the bottom of the seventh sealed the loss for the Hounds and put them behind in the weekend series 2-0 after having lost Friday’s series opener 7-2.

Cameron kept rolling in Saturday’s nightcap, scoring in every inning to end the game after just five innings. The Hounds did all they could to keep pace with the Aggies, putting together a series-high seven hits, but couldn’t slow down a talented Cameron offensive attack long enough to get back into the game.

The Aggies totaled four runs in their first two trips to the plate before Eastern New Mexico put together it’s best offensive inning of the weekend with three runs in the bottom of the second. Sophomore Parker Smith followed up a single from senior Kimberly Herron to give the Hounds runners on first and second base with just one out before Moreno knocked a base hit to right field that scored Herron from second and advanced Smith all the way to third.

Junior Precious Aguirre followed the Moreno single with an RBI single of her own that scored Smith from third, and then drew enough attention on an attempted stolen base to allow Moreno to score on the throw down from the catcher to second base. The three runs for Eastern narrowed the score to 4-3, but the Greyhounds could only manage two more base runners for the game, as the Aggies continued to get runs across and ended it after five innings of play.

Moreno led the team with two RBIs on the day and also scored two runs herself. Freshman Haleigh Behncke had a productive day, going 3-for-6 with a double.

ENMU will be back in action this weekend on the road against Texas A&M-Kingsville. That three-game series begins on Friday night at 5 p.m., with a Saturday doubleheader starting at noon.