SAN MARCOS, Texas –  Texas State is now 9-3 on the season after splitting its day in the San Marcos Classic with a 2-1 win over SIU and a 4-2 loss to Kansas. 

Highlighting the Bobcats win vs SIU was a high-level pitching outing from Emma Strood as she tossed a career-best 14 strikeout game. That, paired with her 5^th home run of the season from Aiyana Coleman propelled the Bobcats to the win.

Texas State dropped its game with Kansas after the team gave up two runs in the first inning struggled to find its momentum again.
WHAT HEAD COACH RICCI WOODARD SAID: "We competed well. Nothing was really going for us real well. I thought we did a good job of keeping ourselves in two ball games. Obviously Emma Strood threw the heck out of it and that helped us. The start to [game two] did not feel good at all. I thought we did a good job at just competing through seven innings."

HOW IT HAPPENED:
Texas State 2, SIU 1
Emma Strood started in the circle and struck out the first batter she faced. She'd go on to strikeout 14 batters on the day, allowing five hits.

After Texas State was unable to put up any runs in the first, Southern Illinois had a solo home run to score their lone run of the game. From there, Strood struck out two batters that inning.

Coleman answered with a first pitch solo home run of her own as the lead off in the bottom of the second. From there, the Bobcats would add another on a Megan Kelnar RBI double after Karmyn Bass got on base from a single down the line. That would complete the scoring in the game versus the Salukis.

Strood continued her pitching masterclass, though, with three strikeouts in the third and fourth, and two more in the fifth. She'd add one more in the sixth and get the final out in the seventh to seal the win from a strikeout.

Texas State 2, Kansas 4
Azua started off in the circle, giving up two runs on two hits and tallying an error in the first. The error came from a single that Azua tried to make the throw home on, but was unable to and allowed the runner to score. From there, the Jayhawks added another on a sacrifice fly before the inning was over.

The Jayhawks added a third run in the top of the third off a passed ball from Bass behind the plate. 

Texas State added one of its runs in the bottom of the 4^th after Keely Williams got on base from a double, she would score on a single from Bass.

Abigail Jennings came in to pitch in the top of the 4^th.

Kansas added another run in the fifth, though, off an RBI single. That's when Woodard opted to bring in Analisa Soliz to close the game out.

Texas State tried to battle back, adding a second run on an RBI double from Erin Peterson to score Bailee Slack, but were unable to. 

Soliz closed out the game with a strikeout and two fly outs, not allowing the Jayhawks to score any runs in the final two innings. Despite Williams singling in the 7^th, Texas State was unable to score any runs to come back in the game.
Texas State is now 9-3 on the season after today's games.

Up next:
Texas State will face SIU in the finale of the San Marcos Classic tomorrow, Feb. 24, at noon inside Bobcat Softball Stadium. That game will be the Bobcats final home game before heading to Texas A&M for a tournament in College Station next week. Fans can purchase tickets to tomorrow's game at txst.com/tickets.