SANTA CLARA, Utah - After dropping the opening game Friday afternoon, the Southern Utah softball team swept a Saturday doubleheader against Utah Valley to win the three-game series. The Thunderbirds hit .397 on the day including four home runs and five doubles, scoring 26 runs combined. They won the first game 11-9 before winning the second 15-14 in walk-off fashion.
Kalena Shepherd went 4-for-5 on the day with two home runs, six RBI, and the walk-off single in game two. Dayna Hokanson went 4-for-7 with five RBI and Josey White hit a home run and had six RBI. Makall Whetten also hit a home run: a solo shot in game one.
Grace Owen earned the win in both games. She pitched 6.1 innings total, giving up just four earned runs and racking up 10 strikeouts.
The Thunderbirds scored in bunches in game one. Down 0-3 in the bottom of the second inning, they put together a four-run inning, highlighted by a Hokanson bases-loaded RBI double. The Wolverines tied things up in the top of the third, but then Southern Utah answered back with a six-run inning.
Shepherd, Makenzie Ball, Danielle Vasquez, and Brooke Brown all had RBI in the inning with Shepherd's coming on a solo home run to open the inning. When all was said and done, the Thunderbirds led 10-4.
The Wolverines scored three runs in the fifth and two in the sixth, but it wouldn't be enough to catch the T-Birds. Whetten added an insurance run in the bottom of the fifth with a solo shot to left center.
When the T-Birds came up to bat in the bottom of the third inning of game two, they found themselves in a 0-7 hole, but then the scoring started and once it started, it didn't stop. They scored five runs in that inning behind a three-run shot from White and RBI from Hokanson and Madison Sanders.
White knocked another run in in the bottom of the fourth and Makayla Marshall brought home Shepherd in the fifth. However, the Wolverines had scored 14 runs by the end of the fifth inning and led it 14-7.
In the bottom of the sixth, Shepherd hit a three-run bomb to center field to make it 14-10 and set up the Thunderbirds for an epic comeback in the seventh.
With three outs left to work with, Southern Utah opened the seventh inning by loading the bases. Hokanson hit a single to right center that brought home two runs and White knocked in one more with a single of her own to make it 14-13. Brown walked to load the bases once more and then Shepherd hit her game-winning walk-off single to score White and Hokanson and win the game 15-14.
The Thunderbirds will have the next week off before heading south once more to compete in a tournament hosted by Dixie State starting on March 12.
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