The WKU Lady Topper softball team was unable to avoid the sweep Sunday against No. 20 South Alabama as the Jaguars took the game 9-5. The series was the last home series in the Sun Belt Conference for the Lady Toppers.

The loss was the sixth straight for WKU as the team falls to 31-20-1 overall this season and 10-8 in the Sun Belt Conference.

“At the end they keep on trying to win no matter what the score is,” coach Amy Tudor said. “They didn’t hang their heads and we still put ourselves in an opportunity to come back.”

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Game three of the Lady Toppers series with South Alabama (36-10, 14-5 SBC) was drastically different than the two that preceded it. Games one and two were close affairs as WKU lost by one in game one and two in game two. Game three, however, was never really close.

The Jaguars got on the board in the second inning after an RBI single from infielder Emily Messer.

South Alabama had a big inning in the third as the team scored three runs on five hits and nearly batted around in the inning.

Senior pitcher Emily Rousseau was pulled about just 2.1 innings of work giving up eight hits and four runs.

USA took its momentum into the fourth inning plating two more runs, one off an RBI triple and the other from an error by WKU shortstop Amanda Thomas.

The Lady Toppers went into the fourth inning with only one hit in the game. With two outs, senior outfielder Kelsie Mattox safely reached base and later scored as junior outfielder Shawna Sadler reached safely off an error and then advanced to third base off the error.

South Alabama got the run back in the top of the fifth inning but in the bottom half of the frame with two outs sophomore infielder Brooke Holloway hit a solo home run to make it a 7-2 game.

The next inning the Jaguars loaded the bases with only one out and was able to push two more runs across to take a seven run lead. Junior pitcher Janna Scheff limited the damage for WKU by getting a pair of pop-ups to end the inning.

WKU loaded the bases with no outs in the seventh and scored three runs in the inning, two courtesy of a Thomas double. However that was all as the team fell 9-5.

Mattox said that the team just needed to put all of the parts together.

“You can’t win if you don’t hit, you can’t win if you don’t pitch, you have to put it all together,” she said. “This team, we’ve got to work hard to do that.”

WKU will play its last home game of the season Tuesday at 5 p.m. against Evansville before traveling to Georgia State next weekend for the final series of the season.

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