Bulldogs Complete Sweep of Trinity on Senior Day

SEGUIN, Texas -- The No. 3 Texas Lutheran softball sent its four seniors Casey Martin (Pearland/Pearland), Chassety Raines (Spring/Klein Collins), Sarah Metzer (Sugar Land/Dulles) and Kelly Jurden (Brenham/Brenham) out with a bang in their final regular season game at Ed Kruse Stadium.

Texas Lutheran beat Trinity 8-0 in five innings, capped off by a four run fifth inning to walk it off - securing their NCAA-leading 19th shutout and 12th run-rule victory this season.

TLU swept the Tigers on the weekend to finish the regular season 21-0 in Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) play and outscoring the Tigers 21-1 in the three-game series. The Bulldogs outhit the Tigers 28-11 in the series.

The Bulldogs won their 62nd straight SCAC game and have won their 51st straight SCAC series - dating back to their entry into the conference in 2014.

Sophomore Ashlyn Strother (Seabrook/Clear Falls) was exceptional in the circle, throwing a perfect game through three and a third innings before allowing a single to left field in the fourth inning. The sophomore finished with a line of no runs, two hits, no walks, and two strikeouts. It was Strother's seventh complete game shutout of the season and 18th win of the year in the circle.

The Bulldogs offense put up eight runs on 12 hits, highlighted by five extra base hits.

Texas Lutheran scored in its first two innings at the plate, beginning with senior Kelly Jurden stealing home in the first. In the second inning, a RBI triple from Madison Johnson (Round Rock/Round Rock) plated Linzee Leal (Corpus Christi/Mary Carroll) to get the scoring started. Johnson would steal home to bring the Bulldogs lead to 3-0. Senior Chassety Raines would triple to left field to score Brandalyn Dee (Cibolo/Steele) to give TLU a 4-0 lead after two innings.

Senior Casey Martin would keep her scorching season at the plate going with an RBI double to score Raines to kickoff the four run fifth inning. Senior Sarah Metzer would hit a two-RBI double to score Martin and Kirsten Williams (Pearland/Glenda Dawson) before Riley Futrell (Florence/Florence), who pinch ran for Metzer, would score on a Trinity throwing error to walk it off for an 8-0 final in five innings.

Sophomore Madison Johnson led TLU at the plate with a 3-for-3 with an RBI and run scored performance while seven Bulldogs would register a hit and four would bring in a run. Metzer led with two RBIs.

Following Saturday's JV game, TLU honored its four seniors Martin, Raines, Metzer and Jurden in a postgame ceremony celebrating their contributions to the program that have seen the seniors be NCAA national champions in 2019 and NCAA national runner-ups in 2021.

Texas Lutheran concludes the regular season 35-4 and 21-0 in SCAC play. The Bulldogs will open postseason play at the SCAC Championship Softball Tournament at UD Softball Field in Irving, Texas, April 29-May 1.

No. 1 seed Texas Lutheran will matchup with the winner of the Schreiner and Southwestern opening round game on Friday at 4 PM. 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).