Austin Peay Sports Information
Cape Girardeau, MO – Austin Peay State University’s softball team got down 5-0 after three innings, Saturday afternoon at the Southeast Softball Complex, and couldn’t overcome that early deficit in coming away with a 7-4 Ohio Valley Conference series ending loss to Southeast Missouri.
Overall, Southeast Missouri (15-31, 9-15 OVC) would record eight doubles in it 12 hits in the contest.
The Redhawks would expand its lead out to 5-0 with single runs in the second and third innings before Austin Peay final got its offense going in the top of the fourth.
Sidney Hooper would start things off with a one-out walk for the Govs, followed by a single from Kendall Vedder.
That brought up Carly Mattson, who hit a 2-2 pitch from SEMO starter Haley Thogmartin out over the left-center field fence for her third home run of the season, while also cutting the Redhawks lead down to 5-3.
But that would be as close as the Govs would get the rest of the way, with Southeast Missouri adding on single runs in the fourth and sixth innings, while Austin Peay was only able to manage one final run in the top of the fifth inning on a sacrifice fly by Niya Sparks.
Aubrey Denno (1-1) got the win in relief for SEMO, with Austin Peay starter Natalie Ayala (2-11) taking the loss and seeing her run of six-or-more innings pitched per start end at eight games.
Austin Peay will closeout its 2016 regular-season schedule next weekend at Cheryl Holt Field with a three-game OVC series versus Murray State.
The Murray State series will also be Senior Weekend for Austin Peay, with the Govs celebrating the careers of its five seniors on the roster in Sparks, Ayala, Vinchenza DiBenedetto, Mel Pavel and Courtney Brower.
