LAFAYETTE, Louisiana – Texas State softball will advance to the semi-finals of the 2023 Sun Belt Conference Championship after taking a 3-0 shutout win over the Troy Trojans to open the tournament Thursday night. The Bobcats will face the winner of Louisiana versus ULM in the semi-final round Saturday night.
  
This was a game of momentum for Texas State. After just two at-bats, the game went into an hour and a half long weather delay. Heading into the delay the Bobcats had two outs and Sara Vanderford up to bat holding a 3-2 count.
 
Vanderford would get walked on the return to play. 

Right-handed pitcher Jessica Mullins would give up her lone hit of the game in the bottom of the first inning, a single that came back to her off the bat of All-Sun Belt Second Team player Taylor McKinney. Mullins would go on to throw a complete game shutout with just one walk and four strikeouts.
 
"If you can throw 74 pitches and get a win out of that, that puts you in a pretty good spot as far as controlling the plate," head coach Ricci Woodard said. "I don't know if there's enough words to say about a Jessica Mullins right now."
 
Momentum swung fully in the favor of the Bobcats in the fourth inning. Vanderford hit the 52^nd double of her career to get on base and she'd go on to steal her second base of the game to advance to third, scoring on a sacrifice fly from Anna Jones. This was the first game of Vanderford's career with multiple stolen bases in a single outing.
 
"Vanderford was lights out tonight," Woodard said.
 
Mullins started off the bottom of the fourth with a strikeout, walked the next batter and then two lineouts to the outfield would bring back up the Bobcats to bat.
 
Hannah Earls would be the first Bobcat on base after being walked on a nine-pitch at-bat. She'd steal second and advance to third off a throwing error. When Trahan struck out swinging for the second out, Woodard opted to bring in freshman Emilee Baker to pinch hit. 
 
Baker singled to right center and Earls scored on the play. Next up to bat was Vanderford, she hit a second single for Baker to score. The two runs in the fifth inning would be enough to put an end to the scoring in the game. 
 
Troy would go three up and three down in the final three innings of play and be unable to get any runs on the board. At the end of seven innings the Bobcats would secure the 3-0 win and advance to the next round. 
 
The Bobcats will take on the winner of game six of the Sun Belt Championship which is #1 Louisiana vs #8 ULM. The game will be at 7 p.m. inside Lamson Park and streamed on ESPN+.