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No. 6 Texas A&M Tops Houston, Boston College on Opening Day

The Texas A&M softball team took both ends of their season-opening doubleheader Friday, defeating Houston in walk-off fashion, 5-4, before taking care of Boston College 3-1 in game two at the Aggie Softball Complex.

COLLEGE STATION – The Texas A&M softball team took both ends of their season-opening doubleheader Friday, defeating Houston in walk-off fashion, 5-4, before taking care of Boston College 3-1 in game two at the Aggie Softball Complex.

Junior Samantha Show got the ball for the season-opener in the circle for the second time of her career. The junior ran into some trouble in the second inning as the Cougars put a couple on with one out. An error by Show brought in two unearned runs before she cut the rally short with a strikeout.

The Cougars added a third run in the following frame with Lindsey Stewart coming around to score after a leadoff triple. Houston’s Mariah Garcia went deep with a long shot to left in the fourth to give Houston a 4-0 advantage.

In the fifth, the Aggies chipped away at the lead plating one run on a Keeli Milligan triple. The speedster from Vidor, Texas drove in Sarah Hudek, who previously singled in the inning.

The Aggie bats came alive in the bottom of the sixth, piling up three crucial runs off Houston starter Trystan Melancon. The rally began with some good fortune as Tori Vidales was the beneficiary of a dropped pop up. A&M capitalized as Walters and Sartain followed it up with a pair of hits scoring Vidales. Two quick outs put the pressure on Hudek, who delivered with a two-run double off the wall tying the score at four.

Show shut down the Cougars in the seventh before the Aggies added the final excitement in the bottom half.

Milligan worked a leadoff walk followed by double off the bat of Alderink, putting Milligan on third and setting the stage for the Vidales. The senior wasted no time smacking the first pitch into center field, plating Milligan and clinching the opening win.

Show finished with four strikeouts over 7.0 innings. She allowed six hits, four runs, two of which were earned, in her 45th career win. The victory kept head coach Jo Evans unbeaten in her 22 home openers at Texas A&M.

Trinity Harrington got the call against Boston College in game two, and kept the Eagles silent all night with the only run coming on an error in the second. After a walk in the third, Harrington locked in sending down the next seven Eagles.

Sarah Hudek showed off her cannon in in the sixth first by catching the Eagles at the plate. The sophomore hummed one into Walters at the dish who applied the run-saving tag. Hudek followed up the gem with an unconventional 9-3 putout at first. Her defensive show allowed the Aggies to maintain their 3-1 lead heading into the final innings.

Harrington registered the win working 6.0 innings fanning five on three hits and just one unearned run. Payton McBride came in to for the 7th sending Boston College down in order to earn the save.

The Aggies will be back at it Saturday with two more games from the Aggie Classic with a rematch against Boston College at 12:15 p.m. before a 3 p.m. tilt with Texas Tech. The Maroon and White wrap up the Aggie classic with a 12:15 Sunday game against Houston.

To learn more about Texas A&M softball, log on to 12thMan.com or follow @AggieSoftball on Twitter.

Texas A&M Quotes

Texas A&M Head Coach Jo Evans

On Sarah Hudek individual performance...

“She was great. After that first game I let our kids know Hudek was huge for us. She stepped up big offensively. You just look her out there, she wants to be the one in that situation and be clutch. And then defensively the kid’s got a cannon. It was really nice to see her get rid of the ball at times. That’s just been the deal, let’s just get rid of this thing and make a play. Ashley Walters I thought did a great job on that play, that’s not an easy play to make and Sarah basically makes the tag for her with the throw. Ashley did a great job hanging on. And just a really heads-up play by Sarah on the next one, they get the base hit through the right side, a lot of kids would have just gone home with that to try to keep the runner from scoring but instead she goes to first base because she knows she has an out. Just a really heads up play and making good decisions out there.”

On the approach for the double-header…

“I don’t care if it’s the first game or the last, I don’t care if it’s practice, we need to get ourselves together. I talked to our team about just doing a better job of keeping our composure. I even thought in the Boston College game we got a little away from ourselves and we got a little away from ourselves offensively. Threw away some at bats. I talked to our team about being professional. We return a lot of starters and I want us to be professional. I want us to handle whatever comes to us and nobody out here thinks we are phased in the least. That is something we will keep working on. I thought we were really hyped up before the game, so I was trying to get them to calm down. They are just so excited to get out there. But there was some things I didn’t like about tonight that we will have to get better. What I did like was Kaitlyn Alderink fighting off pitches and then smoking that one to center field and we scored on it. And Tori Vidales stepping up at bat, hitting the ball hard and Kaitlyn made a really nice slide into home. So there was some really good positive things out there.”

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