SAN ANTONIO — Senior Emily Humpal tied a career high with four RBIs on a grand slam and she also earned the win in the circle, as UTSA defeated Nicholls, 8-2, on Saturday for its sixth consecutive Southland Conference win on Senior Day at Roadrunner Field.
Fellow senior Carrie Monroe and freshman Jori Fox also homered for the Roadrunners (25-23, 15-12 SLC), who have won eight of their last nine games overall.
As had been the case in the first two games of the series, the Colonels (9-33, 2-18 SLC) jumped out to an early lead.
Megan Gaspard led off the game with a single and scored two batters later on Ashley Ray’s double to left field.
However, Monroe erased the deficit with one swing, crushing Ashton Bennett’s pitch over the fence in left for a lead-off homer. It marked the second time this season that the Austin native left the park in UTSA's half of the first.
The Roadrunners took the lead for good in the second, scoring a pair of runs on singles by junior Nikki Goff and sophomore Samantha Beeson.
Junior Caitlyn Ivy led off the stanza with a base hit to left and Fox followed with the first of her two walks. Both moved up on a wild pitch before Goff stroked a run-scoring single through the left side to plate Ivy. Beeson’s knock down the left-field line made it 3-1.
That proved to be all for Bennett (5-16), who dropped her third decision in as many games. She was relieved by Carlee Winklemann, who allowed four unearned runs in the third.
The inning started with an error by Gaspard at shortstop, her second of the game. Freshman Molly Fichtner and Ivy then reached on fielder’s choices before Fox walked again to load the bases for Humpal. The Corpus Christi native took the first pitch of the at-bat over the fence in center for her first homer of the season and a 7-1 lead.
Another RBI hit from Ray made it 7-2 in the fourth, but that was all the offense Nicholls could muster against the senior duo of Humpal and Danye Holmes in the circle.
Humpal (9-4) allowed one earned run in four innings with a pair strikeouts and Holmes tossed three scoreless innings for her second save of the season.
Fox ended the scoring for UTSA in the fifth with a solo shot to left field. It was her fourth home run of the season and third of the series.
The Roadrunners will try to extend their conference winning streak next weekend at Texas State, but they first will look to score a road win at No. 5 Texas (41-4) at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
