University of South Alabama Athletics

BATON ROUGE, La. | No. 11 Virginia Tech broke a scoreless tie with four unearned runs in its half of the third and went on to defeat South Alabama, 6-0 in the opening round of the Baton Rouge Regional held at Tiger Park.

Up Next
•    South Alabama will try to keep its season alive when it faces the loser of the LSU/Akron game on Saturday in an elimination game with first pitch set for 2:30 p.m. Should they win that game, the Jaguars will then turn around and play another elimination game at 5 p.m.

Quotable – head coach Becky Clark
- Opening statement: "As always, I'm proud to represent the University of South Alabama. Today, we were good, but not great. We didn't play incredibly well and I think there's more in the tank for us. The good thing about our team is that we are built off digging in and playing with grit and toughness. For us, we have to buy into that mentality and come back in ready to get the job done."

- On what she saw that helped Virginia Tech have success at the plate: "Like Ryley (Harrison) said, I think they capitalized on mistakes. Ryley pitched a really good game, but the third inning was kind of a tough inning. The walk at the bottom of the order and then the error on the ground ball didn't help. I thought she had them beat until she didn't with the grand slam. They have good hitters and they know what to do when you miss a little bit."

- On what she said to the team after the loss: "I believe my exact words to them were to make a decision on what we want to buy into heading into tomorrow. Do we want to buy into defeat or do we want to dig in? You never want to lose the first one (of a regional). When you do, you have your work cut out for you. The thing about this group is that they are built on grit and toughness. They will dig in. I didn't think we played incredibly well today. That's bad for today, but good for tomorrow. We can take a step forward and I think that's all we have to do tomorrow. We did not play like we did last week. We have to go back and find that intensity."

- On the offense today: "We started out being aggressive at the plate. I thought we won those first two innings. In the third inning, we started taking some pitches and lost that aggressiveness. After the pitching change as a whole, I didn't feel that we adjusted to her. I don't think we were crisp or mentally sharp. We were out there working and trying to do everything we could to win that game, I just don't think we were sharp. We have to figure that out before tomorrow.

Junior RHP Ryley Harrison
- On what the difference was to her that led to Virginia Tech having success at the plate: "Virginia Tech is a good offensive team. When I made mistakes, they capitalized on them. For me tomorrow, I'll work on things to get better on in order to get hitters out."

Sophomore OF Presley Lively
- On what helped her have success against both pitchers: "I just worked on slowing things down and keeping my eyes on the ball. We had talked about getting on top of the ball, and especially for me being a slapper I wanted to get on the top half of the ball and stay inside of it. I was able to see the inside part of the ball early because she was throwing me a lot of strikes early in the count."

Key Moments
•    South Alabama (32-26) threatened to get on the board in the top of the first as Kara Wine lined one-out double to left center on the first pitch she saw from Bree Carrico (15-1), but after advancing the runner to third, Carrico induced a ground out to short to end the inning
•    Lillie Stagner drew a leadoff walk to begin the top of the second and pinch runner Gracie McDonald then swiped her 13th stole base of the season to move into scoring position, but Carrico would work out of it with a pop out on the infield and then a double play on a foul out one batter later when pinch runner McDonald tried to advance to third
•    The Hokies took the lead with four unearned runs in the bottom half of the third on a grand slam by Kylie Aldridge – her 11th of the season
•    Gabby Mizelle had drawn a leadoff walk to begin the inning and Annika Rohs lined a single to left to put a pair on, and with one out, South Alabama committed its second error of the game, and after a strike out, Aldridge drove a 1-2 pitch from Ryley Harrison (18-13) over the wall to give the Virginia Tech the lead
•    One inning later, Zoe Yaeger homered – her 10th of the spring – on the first pitch she saw with one out to extend the Hokie lead (VT, 5-0)
•    VT added another run in its half of the sixth as with one out in the inning and a pair on, Yaeger plated her second run of the game with a RBI-single to left (VT, 6-0)

Key Stats
•    Presley Lively was 2-for-3 at the plate in the loss and Stagner reached all three of her plate appearances as she recorded a single and a pair of walks
•    Carrico and Avery Layton (5 SV) combined for the shutout and held South Alabama to just four hits
•    Five of Tech's six runs came via the home run as the Hokies entered the postseason with 105 home runs – fifth-most in the NCAA
•    Aldridge drove in four runs with her grand slam and went 2-for-3, while Yaeger drove in two and also went 2-for-3

Postgame Notes
•    The meeting is the fourth in the all-time series with Virginia Tech, but the first in the postseason
•    The loss marked just the second time in its five regional appearances that South Alabama has fallen in its opening game of a regional
•    The meeting with the Hokies marked the sixth in the postseason versus an ACC opponent, ??3-2
•    Wine has had a hit in 16 of her last 20 and has reached base safely in 24 of her last 27
•    Wine has had either a hit, a walk or driven in a run in 34 of her last 41 games
•    Stagner has reached base safely in 11 of her last 16 after drawing the second-inning walk
•    Lively has had a hit in 22 of her last 29 games and reached base safely in 25 of her last 30
•    The multi-hit game for Lively was her 12th of the season and the 23rd of her Jaguar career
•    The grand slam marked the fourth allowed by Jaguar pitching this spring

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