Cowgirls Split Day One in Oklahoma City

Friday, May 11

Oklahoma City, OK

11 A.M. CT

Oklahoma State University

36-20

Baylor

36-14

Baylor

Oklahoma State

Photo by: OSU Athletics

May 11, 2018 | Cowgirl Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

PDF Box Score - Baylor
PDF Box Score - Texas Tech

OKLAHOMA CITY – The No. 24 Oklahoma State softball team split its opening day of play at the 2018 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship, falling to No. 17/16 Baylor, 7-1, and then besting Texas Tech, 7-6, on Friday at OGE Energy Field.

The Cowgirls (36-21) win over Texas Tech marked the squad's 13th win over a conference opponent this season.

Vanessa Shippy opened the game by making history, as she tied the Big 12 career doubles record with a shot to left-center field. Shippy's two-bagger was the 56th double of her career, bringing her level with Jaime Foutch (OSU, 1996-99) and Lisa Carey (Oklahoma, 1998-01) for the league record.

Shippy would later score in the inning after Taylor Lynch and Madi Sue Montgomery each moved her up a base with infield groundouts. The trio would come up to the plate again in the second inning and their production only grew with a second trip to the plate.

In that second inning, Shippy opened the scoring with a bases-clearing single to left field that gave OSU a 4-0 edge. Lynch immediately made it a 6-0 game as she bounced a ball off the top the center-field wall and over the fence to notch her eighth home run of the season. Montgomery followed her former travel ball teammate with an opposite-field shot to left field.

It was Montgomery's 14th home run of the year, tying her with Courtney Totte (2007) and Kim Kaye (2008) for the Oklahoma State single-season record. Montgomery's pair of RBI in the first two innings also brought her to 60 for the season - a mark which ranks as the second-most in school history. She owns two of the top three single-season totals in school history, as her 57 RBI as a freshman in 2016 ranks third.

Samantha Clakley earned the win in the circle, pitching five innings and allowing three earned runs. Logan Simunek earned her second save of the season, pitching the final two outs of the contest.

In the opener, the Cowgirls were unable to get much of anything going offensively and were downed by No. 17/16 Baylor, 7-1.

Things went against OSU right from the Start, as the Cowgirls were on the wrong side of a few close calls in the top of the first innings. Those decisions - along with a trio of hits and an infield error - gave Baylor a quick 3-0 lead.

Whitney Whitehorn got one run back for Oklahoma State in the second inning, lacing the first pitch of the frame just inside the left-field foul pole to make it a 3-1 game. The home run was Whitehorn's ninth of the year, which is tied for the second most by a Cowgirl in 2018.

Taylor Lynch also found some success at the plate, going 3-for-3 with a first-inning double to her credit at the plate. It was her fifth three-hit game of the season, but on all three occasions the left-handed hitter was left stranded on base.

In the circle, Logan Simunek took the loss, falling to 8-5 on the year. Simunek allowed only one earned run through the first five innings of Saturday's opener, but gave up a two-run home run in both the sixth and seventh innings to inflate her 2018 ERA to 2.62.

Oklahoma State will wrap up its weekend in Oklahoma City tomorrow in the fifth-place game. First pitch is set for 11 a.m. at Hall of Fame Stadium and the Cowgirls' opponent will be determined by the result of tonight's Oklahoma-Iowa State matchup.