Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

MAGNOLIA, Ark. – Playing in their final home games of the regular season, the Southern Arkansas softball team enjoyed a great day at Lady Mulerider Field as they took both ends of Saturday's doubleheader against visiting Southwestern Oklahoma, by scores of 6-2 and 9-0, respectively.
 
Not long after completing their doubleheader sweep, the Southern Arkansas softball team learned that they will enter the upcoming Great American Conference Tournament as the No. 2-seeded team as Southeastern Oklahoma swept a pair of games from Henderson State as well on Saturday.
 
For the Lady Muleriders (32-23, 25-15 GAC), this marks the third-consecutive year they will play in the GAC Tournament. It will also be the highest seed that they will have entered the tournament in their three-year affiliation with the GAC.
 
In the opening game on Saturday, the Lady Muleriders wasted no time in getting on the scoreboard as Sarah Higginbotham drove in the first run of the game on a single up the middle. Two innings later that 1-0 lead would turn into a 4-0 lead as the Lady Muleriders scored three runs in the third. The first of those runs came home on a bases-loaded walk to Leigha Doyle. The other two scored on a two-RBI single to centerfield off the bat of Darian Harris.
 
An inning later, Maddie Dow provided SAU starting pitcher Hanna Gill with two more runs of insurance as she blasted her 18th homerun of the season the opposite way out to right-centerfield.
 
Gill (9-3) would make that score stand until the top of the seventh inning when the Lady Bulldogs (13-39, 9-31 GAC) got on the board with a two-run homerun to make it a 6-2 game. Despite giving up the homerun, Gill would go on to close out the game and earn her ninth win of the season. In her start on Saturday, Gill worked seven complete innings, scattered five hits, walked none and struck out seven.
 
In game two, as in the opener, the Lady Muleriders jumped out on top as they scored three runs in the bottom of the first. The first two of those runs came on a two-RBI double by Audrey Farfan. Farfan later scored the third run that inning on a RBI double by Chelsea Ivy.
 
In the next inning, the Lady Muleriders extended their lead to 5-0 as Shelby Miller hammered a two-run homerun for her 12th of the season. Four more runs followed in the bottom of the third as the Lady Muleriders opened up a sizable 9-0 lead.
 
That lead would be more than enough for Miller in the circle as she would work four complete shutout innings before handing the ball over to senior pitcher Taylor Clifton. Clifton would hit the first batter she faced, but came back to get the next three batters in order to complete the five-inning shutout for the Lady Muleriders.
 
As the No. 2-seed in the GAC Tournament, the Lady Muleriders will take on the No. 7-seeded Arkansas-Monticello Cotton Blossoms in the opening round. That game, which will be held at Bentonville High School in Bentonville, Ark., will have a first-pitch time of Noon on Thursday, May 1. Be sure to check www.Muleriderathletics.com and www.greatamericanconference.com for all your GAC Tournament information.