#10 Bruins Softball Comes from Behind to Beat Texas

LOS ANGELES - Freshman Bubba Nickles broke a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the sixth with a home run, while junior Selina Ta'amilo struck out seven in a complete-game victory, as the 10th-ranked Bruins defeated Texas by a score of 3-2 on Sunday at Easton Stadium.

The Bruins improve to 21-5, while the Longhorns fall to 12-10.

Ta'amilo extended her streak of consecutive innings without allowing an earned run to 21 1/3. She didn't walk a batter and gave up just six hits to improve to 7-0 on the season. Ta'amilo struck out the side in the second and had 1-2-3 innings in the fourth, sixth and seventh, retiring the last seven batters of the game.

At the plate, four Bruins combined for six hits, as juniors Madeline Jelenicki and Kylee Perez both had two.

Texas scored a pair of unearned runs in the top of the first. A leadoff error by senior Delaney Spaulding was cashed in on RBI singles by Reagan Hathaway and Jade Gortarez to put the visitors up early.

The Bruins evened things in the third. Spaulding led off with a single to left, Perez reached on a bunt single and both moved over on a sacrifice by sophomore Paige Halstead. Jelenicki followed with a double to the gap in left-center to score Spaulding to make it 2-1. Perez had to hold up at third in case the ball was caught, but she would score during the next at-bat on a wild pitch to tie things up at two.

In the sixth, Nickles wasted no time putting the Bruins ahead, launching the first pitch of the inning over the left-center field wall for her fourth homer of the season to make it 3-2.

The Bruins open up Pac-12 Conference play next weekend, hosting #20 Utah at Easton Stadium, starting on Friday at 5 p.m. The series continues on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and concludes on Sunday at 5 p.m. All three games will be televised on Pac-12 Networks.