Texas Lutheran Sweeps St. Thomas

HOUSTON, Texas -- The No. 3 Texas Lutheran softball team (29-4, 15-0 SCAC) swept through its doubleheader with University of St. Thomas in Houston Saturday to complete the series sweep. The Bulldogs shutout the Celts 7-0 in game one before beating them 15-7 in game two. Texas Lutheran is now riding a 12-game win streak.

Sydney Ouellette (Corpus Christi/Gregory-Portland) threw seven shutout innings - blanking the Celts in game one. The shutout brings Texas Lutheran's season total to an NCAA Division-III leading 15 on the season. Ouellette only allowed two hits and one walk while striking out one St. Thomas batter to pick up her seventh win of the season.

The Bulldogs would strike first by scoring two runs in the top of the first courtesy of Kelly Jurden (Brenham/Brenham) scoring on a passed ball by the St. Thomas catcher and an RBI single from Faith Hernandez (Dinuba, Calif./Dinuba).

An RBI single from Laura Hernandez (Missouri City/Ridge Point), a sacrifice fly from Sarah Metzer (Sugar Land/Dulles), and an RBI single from Brandalyn Dee (Cibolo/Steele) in the fourth inning would extend the Bulldogs lead to 5-0.

Dee would double to right center field to score Riley Futrell (Florence/Florence) and Lexi Coward (Rockwall/Rockwall) in the sixth to bring the game to its final score of 7-0.

A nine-run first inning helped lead the Bulldogs to a 15-7 win in game two. Texas Lutheran scored 15 runs, their second highest run total of the season, on 15 hits.

Kelly Jurden led off the game with a leadoff walk and would immediately steal second base. Chassety Raines (Spring/Klein Collins) would reach on a throwing error following a dropped third strike resulting in Jurden scoring the first run of the game. After a Bailey Hudgeons (Dripping Springs/Dripping Springs) walk, the Bulldogs would showcase some head's up baserunning resulting in Hudgeons on second base and Raines stealing home to give TLU a 2-0 lead. Hudgeons would then score on yet another St. Thomas passed ball in what was a rough first inning for the St. Thomas battery.

Sarah Metzer would single through the left side to add two more runs to the Bulldogs early onslaught of runs. With the bases loaded, Kelly Jurden would bring in another run, with an RBI infield single. A two-RBI single from Chassety Raines would extend the Bulldogs lead to 8-0. Casey Martin (Pearland/Pearland) capped off the inning with an RBI single down the left field line to score Raines, giving TLU an 9-0 lead entering the bottom of the first.

A solo home run would get St. Thomas on the board in the bottom of the first. The Celts would score a pair of runs in the bottom of the third to bring the TLU lead to 9-3 through three innings.

The Bulldogs would get two of the runs back in the top of the fourth via RBIs from Metzer and Jurden.

St. Thomas would score four runs over the fourth and fifth innings to draw the Bulldogs lead to 11-7.

The Bulldogs would not score again until the seventh inning. TLU would score four runs in the seventh inning to bring the game to its final tally of 15-7.

Amanda White (Lockhart/Lockhart) started the game and pitched the first three innings, allowing three runs on five hits and would pick up her seventh win of the season. Madison Johnson (Round Rock/Round Rock) would relieve White in the fourth - making her first appearance in the circle for the Bulldogs - allowing four runs in one inning of work. Ouellette would return to the circle for Texas Lutheran to toss three shutout innings to close the game.

With the series sweep, TLU has now won 56 consecutive SCAC regular season games and 49 straight SCAC conference series.

Texas Lutheran will take their final road trip of the regular season as they travel to Irving, Texas, to face the University of Dallas Crusaders in a three-game weekend series. First pitch is scheduled for 5 PM on Thursday. 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).