JACKSON, Tenn. – The top-ranked University of West Florida softball team finished off a sweep at Union on Saturday with another pair of road wins, improving to 36-5 overall and 19-2 in Gulf South Conference play. The Argonauts now lead the GSC standings by 3.5 games.
 
Saturday was another strong day for the Argonauts, who hit .368 and slugged .509 between the two games. Mika Garcia led the team with a .750 (3-4) batting average, Jacquelynne Poling slugged 1.667 and hit a home run, and Teala Howard tallied 5 hits and 4 RBIs in the doubleheader.
 
Howard led UWF in batting (.667), hits (8), runs (4), RBIs (4), and total bases (10) for the weekend, and Garcia had a team-best .700 on-base percentage in the series.
 
For the weekend, the Argonaut pitching staff posted a 2.33 ERA and held a strong Union offense to a .205 batting average. Kelsey Sweatt set a season high with 11 strikeouts in the first game of the day, and Grace Gilbert earned 2 wins over the weekend.
 
Game 1: UWF 7, Union 2
The front half of the doubleheader was an all-around dominant performance for UWF, with a complete game win from Kelsey Sweatt in the circle and multi-hit days from four batters.
 
Sweatt went the distance for the ninth time this season and improved to 12-1, striking out a season-high 11 batters and allowing just five hits along the way. Those 11 strikeouts are the most for a UWF pitcher in a single game this year, and are the most for an Argonaut since Sarah Maloney struck out 15 batters against Nova Southeastern in February 2018.
 
The sophomore also leads the conference in ERA (1.41) and opponent batting average (.167) this year, and she retired 10 consecutive batters from the end of the first inning through the fourth.
 
GSC RBIs leader Kaitlyn Kelley homered in the bottom of the first, but that was the only trouble Sweatt would face for much of the afternoon. West Florida responded to the home run quickly, with Ally Merrill bringing in the tying run in the top of the second with a single to right field.
 
West Florida took over in the fourth with a four-run inning that started with Jacquelynne Poling's third home run of the season to give the Argonauts a 2-1 lead. Of course, the offense did not stop there – Courtney McLellan then singled to right and UWF got back-to-back bunt singles from Merrill and Rachel Wright to load the bases with no outs.
 
From there, McLellan was credited with a steal of home, and Howard drove in two runs with a single, making it 5-1. Howard added her third RBI of the afternoon with a triple that scored Mika Garcia in the sixth, and Grace Gilbert lifted a sacrifice fly in that same inning to finish off the scoring.
 
The first of Saturday's two games marked UWF's 35th win of the year. While the Argonauts are the second team in the country to reach 35 wins for the year (No. 4 Southern Arkansas), UWF did it in just 40 games, compared to SAU's 41.
 
Game 2: UWF 5, Union 3
The Argonauts got on the board in the first when they loaded the bases and a fielder's choice from McLellan scored Howard, who had another multi-hit day. The second and third runs of the game came in the second, on a Rhiannon Sassman RBI single that brought in Rachel Wright, and a single from Howard that scored Sassman.
 
Union would not go away easily, however, and scored one in the third and two more in the fifth, on a Haley Barnette home run, to tie the game at 3-3.
 
West Florida bounced back with two more runs in the top of the sixth, with a two-run triple from Sassman that scored Wright and Garcia and put the score at 5-3. The triple was her Division II-leading eighth of the year and the 24th of her career, which ranks second in UWF history and leads the Gulf South Conference record books.
 
Tori Perkins got the start in the circle and went 4.1 innings, allowing three total runs and striking out three Union batters, before Grace Gilbert entered the game in relief and earned her GSC-best 16th win of the season. The sophomore allowed only two hits and kept Union off the scoreboard in her 2.2 innings of work.
 
West Florida is back home next weekend for a series against Lee on Saturday, April 13, and Sunday, April 14.