WESSON, Ms. – LSU Eunice was able to bounce back in day two of the Region 23 Tournament with a 5-3 victory over Itawamba on Thursday. The 8th-ranked Bengals (33-19) eliminated the No. 6 Indians as the first team gone in the six-team field.
LSUE struck early and often, building a 4-0 lead in the first three innings.
Madison Prejean (Lafayette, LA, St. Thomas More HS) started the scoring with a big blast to left center with a solo home run, her fifth of the season. The Bengals would enjoy a three-run third after loading the bases on two errors and an infield single.
Madison Diaville (Livingston, LA, Doyle HS) would bring in a pair of runs with a hard shot up the middle, followed by a sacrifice bunt by
Ashlyn Roach (Calhoun, LA, West Ouachita HS).
Itawamba would respond in its next at bat with a solo home run of its own. The Indians would claw to 4-2 in the fifth as
Chloe Bennett (Rosepine, LA, Rosepine HS) worked in traffic, leaving a base runner stranded at third.
The Bengals would show some postseason mettle, answering right away to push their lead back to three. LSUE would load the bases again with
Mikayla Cashdollar (Glenmora, LA, University Academy) cashing in another run on an infield single. The Bengals could not get another run across, making it 5-2 after five innings.
The Indians would make one final push, scoring a run in the seventh and having the go-ahead run at the plate.
Cendall Barton (Elmer, LA, Alexandria Senior HS) would grab her fourth save of the season, leaving the two base runners stranded with a strikeout to end the game. Barton went 2.0 innings of one-hit relief, striking out two batters.
Chloe Bennett improved to 20-7 on the season, tossing five full innings. Bennett gave up two runs, one earned, off a hit and three walks to go along with three punchouts.
Maddie Leal (Houston, TX, Spring HS) collected three of the team's six hits, scoring twice, to lead the LSUE offense.
The Bengals will now face off with Jones College on Friday as the bracket was moved to a five-team scenario following the Bobcats defeat of Copiah-Lincoln on Thursday afternoon. LSUE and Jones will square off at 2:30PM with the game being live streamed on colinathletics.com.
