Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

DURANT, Okla. – The Southern Arkansas softball team displayed their outstanding resiliency to its fullest on Friday afternoon as they overcame a close one-run loss in the opener to come back with an impressive 9-2 win in the nightcap to force a doubleheader split with the top team in the Great American Conference, Southeastern Oklahoma.
 
Twice in that opening game would the Lady Muleriders (19-15, 14-10 GAC) rally to knot the game before eventually falling in the bottom of the seventh. The first of those rally efforts came in the top of the third inning with the Lady Muleriders trailing 4-0.
 
In that inning, Taylor Guin led off with a single down the left field line. Courtney Hudgins would follow suit with an infield single in the next at-bat. Brooke Goad then drew a walk to load the bases with no outs. A single through the left side by Maddie Dow would plate the first run and kept the bases loaded with none gone. Shelby Miller then helped her own cause as she drove in a pair of runs on double to left-centerfield. The fourth run of that inning came home on a RBI groundout of Sarah Higginbotham.
 
That score would stand until the bottom of the fifth when the Savage Storm (22-9, 15-5 GAC) pushed across a pair of runs to make it a 6-4 game. In the top of the seventh, the Lady Muleriders would knot the score once more, this time at six-all. Dow would reach first base on a hit-by-pitch to start the inning. That leadoff bean-ball set the stage for Miller as she blasted a two-run shot in the ensuing at-bat.
 
A leadoff walk issued by Miller in the bottom of the seventh, however, eventually came around to score the winning run as the Savage Storm came away with a 7-6 win.
 
Seemingly undeterred from that close loss in the opener, the Lady Muleriders came out in the top of the first inning and put together a two-out rally as they grabbed an early 2-0 lead. In that inning, Miller, on a 1-2 count, would single up the middle. That two-out single by Miller would then be followed by a two-run homerun to left-centerfield by Higginbotham.
 
The Savage Storm would get one of those runs back in the bottom of the first, but a solo homerun by Goad in the top of the third gave the Lady Muleriders a two-run lead once more, 3-1. That two-run lead for SAU would swell to six runs in the top of the fifth inning when they scored four runs on three hits and benefitted from a pair of Southeastern errors. The big blow that inning was a two-run homerun by Miller, her second two-run shot of the day.
 
A run by the Savage Storm in the bottom of the inning would make it a 7-2 game, but the Lady Muleriders would add two more runs of insurance in the top of the seventh inning to bring the game its eventual final of 9-2.  RBI singles by Higginbotham and Audrey Farfan would account for the Lady Muleriders' runs in the seventh.
 
Miranda Cuff would earn the win in that second game as she allowed eight hits and two runs (one earned) over five complete innings of work. Miller would pitch the final two innings without surrendering a hit.
 
Both teams will be back in action tomorrow morning as the series comes to a close with another doubleheader starting at 11 a.m.