Central Arkansas played its first home game at Farris field on Tuesday night against University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.
“It’s really exciting. We’ve been practicing against each other on our home field for the past month, so it’s going to be really fun to have somebody else out there and having fun in front of our fans,” senior Sarah Bigej said.
After the first two innings, it was evident who the dominant team was. At the top of the first inning, Central Arkansas pitcher Shivaun Landeros did a marvelous job holding University of Arkansas Pine Bluff to no points. At the bottom of the first the Bears capitalized on errors, walks and three hits. This made it possible for junior outfielder Briana Whisenhunt, senior third baseman Sam Forest, senior second baseman Sarah Bigej, junior utility player Bailey Reynolds and sophomore infielder Audrey Pratt to all score.
“I think that one thing we do really well as a pitching staff is that we don’t buckle under pressure and we have a really good defense behind us, so we take advantage of that,” Landeros said.
Landeros and the defense would repeat their performance in the second inning, holding the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff scoreless while the offense went to work, scoring five times again. Forest scored on a hit from Whisenhunt singled up the middle. Whisenhunt scored on a hit from Bigej singled to right center. Bigej scored on a wild pitch and Jessie Taylor and Amy Gunnels both scored on a walk, giving Central Arkansas a 10-0 lead.
University of Arkansas Pine Bluff scored at the top of the 5th inning, making it 10-1 but it wasn’t enough to mount a comeback.
“We expected to win. We didn’t want to take them lightly though. Our goal was to play the game of softball correctly and we did that tonight and took advantage of their mistakes,” junior Hannah Stirton said.
This gives the Bears great momentum to go into the 30th Annual Louisiana Classics, where they will be facing top ranked teams like Oregon and Louisiana Lafayette.
“If we just go into these games knowing that we can compete with these guys, and play at the level that we know we’re capable of playing at, I think we’re going to be just fine,” Landeros said.
image via www.ucasports.com
