SAN MARCOS, Texas — Choo! Choo! The train kept on rolling for another day as the Texas State softball team knocked off Coastal Carolina, 3-2, on a
Hailey MacKay solo home run in the bottom of the seventh inning Friday afternoon to extend its winning streak to 17 games.
"Yeah, it doesn't get much better than that, does it," said Texas State head coach
Ricci Woodard. "(MacKay) has been due for a while now, so as I told her, if you're going to go, then go and don't get cheated and she did just that."
After Coastal Carolina (8-16, 1-8) threatened in the top of the first inning off Bobcat starting pitching
Tori McCann,
Hannah Earls put a one in the run column for the home team when she scored from first on a fielding error in centerfield following a one-out single off the bat of
Sara Vanderford.
The 1-0 Texas State lead stood until the top of the third when the Chanticleers scored one on a bases-loaded groundout, before
Jessica Mullins, who entered the game after McCann faced two batters in the third, retired the next two in order. Coastal Carolina even took the lead the following inning when Stavi Augur scored from third on a one-out fielder's choice that rolled back to Mullins in the circle.
However, the visitor lead was erased in the bottom half of the fourth when
Piper Randolph, who hit a two-out single to centerfield then stole second, scored from there on a two-out double to left field by Earls.
Meagan King, though, after she entered the circle for Mullins with one out in the fourth, allowed only two hits — back-to-back two-out singles in the top of the fifth — in her 3.2 innings of relief kept the Chanticleers in check en route to earning her seventh win on the season.
The 2-2 score stood from the bottom of the fourth all the way until the bottom of the seventh until MacKay clubbed a 2-1 pitch well beyond the left-field fence for her third home run of the season.
"Honestly, I was just trying to keep it as simple as possible," MacKay said on the at bat. "I wasn't worried about what inning it was or what the score was. I was just trying to put a good swing on a good pitch."
Texas State (24-3, 8-0) will look to match its school-record winning streak set during the 2001 season when the Bobcats put its 17-game winning streak on the line when Texas A&M comes to San Marcos on Tuesday, April 6.
