Madalyn Johnson struck out seven and tossed a complete game as the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets came out the winner in a pitching duel against the Texas State Bobcats to open up both programs NCAA Tournament runs Friday afternoon at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, Fla.
The sophomore led the Yellow Jackets to a dominant victory on the back of lights out pitching, limiting the Bobcats to just five baserunners in total, including three hits and one walk and hit-by-pitch apiece while giving up one run in the process.
Opposite of Johnson was Texas State junior pitcher Maddy Azua, who despite earning her 12th loss of the season, went toe-to toe against Georgia Tech’s ace in the circle, giving up two hits and walks and striking out three batters in the process. However, she is credited with giving up two runs, only one of which is earned.
While there were some baserunners that threatened for both teams, including senior first basemen Aiyana Coleman tying the all-time program record for walks at 110 in her 110th career game as well as the Yellow Jackets threatening in the top half of the second after Coleman failed to fully secure the ball on an exchange resulting in an error, no damage was done in the first two innings.
Georgia Tech started the third with a single and a sacrifice bunt to advance the runner, sophomore third basemen Gracyn Tucker drove in the first run of the ballgame with an RBI double to give them an early 1-0 lead.
The Bobcats responded quickly, taking advantage of senior shortstop Sami Hood’s hit-by-pitch and steal when Harley Vestal drove a groundball towards Tucker that ricocheted off her glove into the outfield, resulting in Hood knotting the score at one-all.
For the next two innings, both offenses had no one reach base in any capacity until the sixth rolled around.
The Yellow Jackets took advantage of multiple fielding mishaps that took place. The inning started when senior first basemen Addison Leschber rolled a ball towards junior second basemen Kat Zarate, who couldn’t cleanly field the ball and allowed Georgia Tech to get their first baserunner on since the third.
After another sacrifice bunt advanced Leschber to second and a groundout got her to third, senior catcher Megan Kelnar couldn’t reel in Azua’s pitch as it bounced off her glove towards the backstop, resulting in Leschber advancing to home and giving Georgia Tech the lead once more.
The Bobcats only mustered two singles across the last two frames as they fell to the Yellow Jackets in their first game of the Gainesville Regional.
Texas State’s season now hangs in the balance after advancing to the loser’s bracket of the Regional, where they are set to play against the Florida A&M Rattlers, who came off a 12-0 run-rule loss to the Regional-host Florida Gators.
The Bobcats and Rattlers will fight to avoid elimination at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow, May 16 at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, Fla. The winner will play the loser out of tomorrow’s Gators-Yellow Jackets match-up later that day at 2 p.m.
The games will be available to stream on ESPN+.
