Akron Softball Earns First Win Of 2018 Season On Final Day Of Black And Gold Tournament

Sunday, February 18

Montgomery, Ala.

9:30 AM

University of Akron

1-7

Fort Wayne

4-6

Akron

Fort Wayne

Photo by: Todd Drexler

Akron Softball Earns First Win Of 2018 Season On Final Day Of Black And Gold Tournament

February 18 | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

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Game One: Box Score | Box Score (PDF)
Game Two: Box Score | Box Score (PDF)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Freshman Mikayla Newland (Chillicothe, Ohio) tossed a complete game, three-hit, shutout over Fort Wayne to lead the Zips to their first win of the 2018 season on the final day of the Black and Gold Tournament in Montgomery, Ala.

With Akron's first win of the season, the Zips improve to 1-8 on the season, while Fort Wayne ended the weekend with a 4-6 record and tournament host Alabama State stands 4-3.

Akron coupled one run in the top of the first inning and the dominating performance by Newland to defeat the Mastadon's, 1-0, in the first game of the final day of tournament play.

Inside the circle, Newland made her fifth start of the season on the rubber for Akron and earned her first collegiate victory and shutout en route to the win. The Zips righty tossed seven innings, gave up three hits, and no runs while striking out three and walking one.

Offensively, Akron tallied five hits from five different individuals, including junior Laura Lakins (Akron, Ohio), redshirt freshman Sydney Jascoe (Commerce, Mich.), senior Cassie Gillespie (Sylvania, Ohio), senior Caitlin Gambone (Canton, Ohio), and sophomore Madison Carter (Newnan, Ga.)

Akron scored the first run of the game for the first time this season jumping on the board in the top of the first inning to take an early 1-0 lead.

Freshman Kayla Wulf (Maumee, Ohio) led off the contest with a six-pitch walk. Jascoe moved Wulf over by perfectly placing down a sacrifice bunt drawing in the first baseman to make the play to the second baseman at first base. In the next at-bat, Wulf quickly moved over to third on the first stolen base of her career, which put her in position to score on Laura Lakins (Akron, Ohio) RBI groundout to second base.

After the Zips got on the board in the first, Newland took over from there and shut down Fort Wayne on their way to victory.

Akron went up against the host team, Alabama State, in the second contest of the afternoon and fell to the Jackets, 7-2, to close out the weekend.

ASU took the lead in its first at-bat after Casey Durham led off the bottom of the first with a triple and was later driven home on a sacrifice fly.

Three straight singles, combined with a pair of stolen bases, earned the Hornets their second run of the ballgame in the bottom of the third inning.

Five insurance runs were added by Alabama State in the bottom half of the sixth inning to open up the game and take a 7-0 lead.

The Zips managed to get two more runs back in the top half of the seventh inning courtesy of a sac fly off the bat of Jascoe to left field and an RBI single by Kimberly Rodriguez (Las Vegas, Nev.), but their comeback efforts would fall short falling 7-2 to the Hornets.

Rodriguez paced the Akron offense going 2-for-3 with an RBI, and a walk, while three other Zips garnered a base knock on the contest.

All three Zips hurlers made an appearance in the contest against the Hornets. The trio of pitchers gave up 11 hits, seven runs, and struck out four.

The Zips early reason road trips continue next weekend when Akron heads to Macon, Ga. to compete at that Mercer Tournament on Feb. 23-24. Akron is scheduled for five contests, including a game against Mercer (Feb. 23), Radford (Feb. 23), Eastern Kentucky (Feb. 24), and two match-ups with Drexel (Feb. 24-25).