No. 3 Bulldogs Sweep Friday Doubleheader Against Centenary

SEGUIN, Texas -- The No. 3 Texas Lutheran softball team (25-4, 11-0 SCAC) collected two wins Friday in its doubleheader over Centenary (9-12, 3-8 SCAC) at Ed Kruse Stadium. The Bulldogs won game one, 5-0, paced by Ashlyn Strother (Seabrook/Clear Falls) 13 strikeouts prior to a 6-3 game two win.

Ashlyn Strother controlled game one of the doubleheader in the Bulldogs 5-0 win. Strother tossed 13 strikeouts in a one-hit, complete game shutout.

Junior Bailey Hudgeons (Dripping Springs/Dripping Springs) got things started early for the TLU offense, lining a ball to center field to plate Kelly Jurden (Brenham/Brenham) in the bottom of the first.

Jurden would help the Bulldogs pour on more offense in the bottom of the second - ripping a double down the left field line to plate Chassety Raines (Spring/Klein Collins) before Madison Johnson (Round Rock/Round Rock) would bring home Jurden to score her second run of the game.

After a scoreless third inning, the Bulldogs offense would start the same as the second - with Jurden driving in Raines with an RBI double to extend the Bulldogs lead to 4-0. Jurden would score on a sacrifice fly from Casey Martin (Pearland/Pearland) to bring the Bulldogs lead to 5-0.

Strother picked up her 13th win of the season and struck out 13 of the 23 batters she faced, with a first inning single and walk being the only base runners she allowed on the evening. Strother now maintains a 13-0 record with a 0.84 ERA and 129 strikeouts.

Casey Martin was instrumental in TLU's win in game two - finishing 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI and two runs scored. Sydney Ouellette (Corpus Christi/Gregory-Portland) tamed the Ladies offensively pitching four and two-thirds innings in relief, surrendering five hits and just one run after an early Centenary rally to pick up her sixth win of the season.

Centenary got on the board first, scoring two early runs on Texas Lutheran starter Amanda White (Lockhart/Lockhart). The Bulldogs responded with some perfectly executed base running that saw Madison Johnson serve as a decoy as Kelly Jurden stole home. Bailey Hudgeons would also score in the first to tie the game 2-2 after one inning.

Texas Lutheran would take the lead in the bottom of the third as an RBI single from Faith Hernandez (Dinuba, Calif./Dinuba) would plate Riley Futrell (Florence/Florence) to give the Bulldogs a 3-2 lead.

Centenary would tie the game three-all in the top of the fifth, but the Bulldogs would immediately regain the lead in the bottom of the fifth with Casey Martin stealing home. The Bulldogs would score two more runs in the sixth to take a 6-3 lead.

Five Bulldogs finished with at least two hits as TLU outhit the Ladies 11 to 7.

With the two Friday wins, Texas Lutheran has matched the program record of 52 consecutive conference wins - matching the 52 game stretch from 2016-2019 - and have won their 48th consecutive conference series dating back to 2014. Additionally, the Bulldogs collected their nation-best 13th shutout of the season.

The teams return to action at Ed Kruse Stadium in Seguin on Saturday at 11 AM for the series finale. All streaming and live stats links can be found on tlubulldogs.com.

For more information on Texas Lutheran softball, follow the Bulldogs on Twitter and Instagram (@TLUsoftball) and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on Twitter, @tlubulldogs on Instagram and Facebook, and @tlu_athletics on TikTok).