Softball Opens GAC Tourney With Win Over UAM

BENTONVILLE, Ark. – Sabetha Sands hammered out three hits and drove in three runs to power Southeastern to a 9-4 win over Arkansas-Monticello in the first round of the Great American conference tournament on Thursday afternoon in Bentonville, Ark.
 
The win advances the Savage Storm to a round two matchup against Harding slated for 6 p.m. on Thursday night.
 
Sands finished the game 3-for-3 with a double and three runs batted in, while Sage Harlow and Kamryn Rackley each collected a pair of hits.
 
Reese Taylor, Emily Simmons, and Changing Sarver each added a hit in the contest.
 
Rackley would also chip in two RBI, while Harlow, Simmons, and Sarver drove in one each.
 
Simmons also got the start in the circle and tossed a complete game, allowing four runs, two of them earned, on five hits with six strikeouts over seven innings to earn her ninth win of the year.
 
Both teams remained scoreless until the fourth inning when a Sands two-run double would plate Simmons and Taylor to take a 2-0 lead.
 
Sands would later come home on a play where Rackley reached on an error, pushing the lead to 3-0.
 
UAM would answer with a pair of runs in the top of the fifth, closing the gap to 3-2.
 
That would not last long though as SE would load the bases in the bottom half of the inning before Simmons and sands drew back-to-back bases-loaded walks, extending the lead to 5-2.
 
UAM would record a pair of outs after the walks, but a two-run single by Rackley and an RBI single by Harlow would see the lead pushed out to 8-2.
 
Sarver would tack on an RBI double in the bottom of the sixth to take a 9-2 lead, with the Cotton Blossoms getting two back in the top of the seventh to make the final score 9-4.