Eastern softball ends season with loss

WICHITA FALLS, Texas — A season that began so promising for the Eastern New Mexico softball team ended in disappointment.

Saturday, the Greyhounds finished their 2019 campaign getting swept by Lone Star Conference rival Midwest State. After a solid 10-7 start to the season, Eastern lost 23 of its last 25 to finish 12-30 overall, 8-22 in conference play.

The season-ending series began with a Friday doubleheader in Wichita Falls, and Eastern lost both ends by respective scores of 5-1 and 1-0. Saturday, the Greyhounds ended their season with a 7-2 loss.

Friday twinbill

Senior Hanna Gary tossed 7 2/3 innings while surrendering just three hits in the second game of the afternoon, which the Greyhounds pushed into extra innings before losing in the bottom half of the eighth. Gary struck out three batters and allowed just two walks over the course of the outing, but couldn’t receive the necessary offensive output needed to secure the win.

Eastern New Mexico’s offense had struggled in Game 1 as well, with the Greyhounds recording just three hits, two of which came in the top half of the seventh inning. Trailing 5-0 entering that final frame, senior Emma Gary got the comeback bid started with a leadoff double to left field. Hanna Gary moved her twin sister around to third base with a pinch-hit single in the ensuing at-bat, setting the stage for senior Lauren Likes to drive home Emma Gary from third with a sacrifice fly.

The Greyhounds were unable to mount anymore offense in the inning and took the 5-1 loss at the hands of the Mustangs.

Gary got her solid effort started in the bottom of the first inning, during which she faced runners on second and third with just one out, but retired the next two batters to escape the inning without conceding a run. The senior from Peoria, Ariz. retired the side in order in each of the next three innings and answered a leadoff walk for Midwestern State with three straight outs in the fifth to keep the game scoreless.

She continued to roll in the sixth and seventh innings, but found trouble in the eighth as a Mustang single to the shortstop with two outs ended the heroic effort for Gary. That runner got on by way of a walk and advanced around to third with a sac bunt and a wild pitch to set up the walk-off win for Midwestern.

Junior Elysa Rodriguez and sophomore Parker Smith were the only two Greyhounds to record hits in Game 2. McElroy added a double to the Gary hits in Game 1 to round out Eastern’s offense for the day.

Saturday farewell

ENMU finished its season with Saturday’s loss.

Midwestern got more runs that it would need in the bottom of the third inning. RBI singles by Lauren Lingren and Misty Muniz, sandwiched around Carli Woolsey’s two-run double made it a 4-0 game.

Eastern cut that difference in half with a fourth-inning rally, thanks to RBI doubles from Hanna Gary and Kayla Marshall.

MSU, though, tacked on a run in the fifth with Jenna Hering’s sacrifice fly, and two more in the sixth on Muniz’s two-run double.

Muniz (11-11) was the winning pitcher, striking out six against just one walk in four innings of work. Annie Lancaster went the last three innings and picked up the save, her third of the season.

Hanna Gary (5-10) absorbed the loss for Eastern.