The Dixie State softball team continued its winning ways on Friday at the Easton Classic, cruising to an 8-0 win over St. Edward’s and an 8-1 triumph over UC Colorado Springs at the Canyons Softball Complex.
The wins pushed the Trailblazers to 7-0 on the season, marking their best start to a season since 2009, when DSU started the season 8-0.
Dixie State pounded out 21 hits on the day, including three home runs, and allowed just one run in 12 innings.
Shelby Yung led DSU offensively, hitting .714 (5-of-7) on the day with a home run and three RBIs. Jessica Gonzalez continued her early season tear, batting .500 (2-for-4) with a home run, a triple, three walks and three RBIs.
Defensively, Brooklyn Beardshear tossed a complete-game, two-hit shutout in the 8-0 win over St. Edward’s, striking out two as the Trailblazers ended the game in five innings. Alexandria Melendez picked up where Beardshear left off in game two, allowing just one run on three hits while picking up her first career complete-game win. Josey Hartman played a solid game in the infield, recording eight assists and three putouts at shortstop.
Game one
The Trailblazers made the most of their first meeting with the Hilltoppers, getting on the scoreboard early in their first game of the day as Gonzalez turned a Hartman hit-by-pitch and a Mallory Paulson infield single into a 3-0 lead with one swing of the bat. Gonzalez blasted a line drive to left field that bounced off the top of the fence and dropped over to give DSU a lead it would not relinquish.
Dixie State added two more runs in the third inning, when Arista Honey drove an RBI single to right field, and Yung picked up her own RBI single two batters later.
DSU put the finishing touches on the victory in the fifth, scoring three runs on two hits, including the winning run on a wild pitch with the bases loaded.
Game two
Dixie State picked up where it left off in the second game, scoring two runs on two hits and one UCCS error in the top of the first. Yung picked up her second RBI of the day with a single down the left field line, then later scored after a throwing error allowed Bailey Gaffin to reach first.
Dani Bartholf added to the 2-0 lead the next inning, blasting the 1-1 pitch over the wall in left center for a leadoff home run, her second home run of the season. Then, in a carbon copy of the second inning, Yung hit a leadoff home run in the third inning, her first of the year. DSU added two more runs in the inning on a two-RBI single by Gaffin.
The Trailblazers closed out the victory in the seventh inning, as Yung stole home as part of a double-steal play, and Riley Tyteca drove an RBI triple down the right field line.
UCCS broke the shutout with a home run in the bottom half of the seventh, but DSU retired the next two batters to clinch the victory.
Dixie State wraps up the Easton Classic on Saturday, taking on Concordia-Portland at 12:30 p.m., and Western New Mexico at 3 p.m.
Keric Seegmiller is Assistant Coordinator of Media Relations at Dixie State University and the Voice of Trailblazer Athletics. Contact him at keric.seegmiller@dixie.edu.