PENSACOLA, Fla. – The University of West Florida softball team put together its best offensive day of the season on Saturday against Delta State, taking wins of 11-3 and 14-0 in the doubleheader. UWF is now 12-6 overall and 5-3 in the Gulf South Conference, while Delta State is 5-11 and 2-6 in the GSC.
 
The Argonauts dominated on both sides today, batting .463 as a team and scoring 25 runs, while starting pitchers Grace Gilbert and Kelsey Sweatt threw two complete games to a 0.64 ERA over 11 innings. The duo held Delta State to a .167 batting average on the day and struck out 13 batters.
 
Teala Howard led UWF at the plate, hitting .857, scoring four runs, tallying six hits, and driving in another four runs. Five more Argonauts hit .500 or better in the doubleheader, including Gilbert, who scored four runs, and Mika Garcia, who hit her first home run of the season.
 
GAME 1: UWF 11, DSU 3 (6 innings)
The Argonauts offense leapt right into action, scoring six runs in the second inning to pull ahead early. Howard, Garcia, Kara Wilson, and Courtney McLellan each had multiple hits, and McLellan led all batters with three RBIs. Freshman Kayla Mayo also had two RBIs in the game.
 
The Argonauts got another strong performance in the circle from Grace Gilbert, who threw the full six innings on the way to her fourth win of the season. The junior struck out six batters and allowed only five hits, and just one of those came in her last three innings of work.
 
McLellan started the scoring with her first of two doubles in the game, scoring Ally Merrill in the second. Mayo followed with a sacrifice fly to score Kara Wilson, and Howard hit a sharp single past DSU shortstop Kailyn Lofton to stretch the lead to 3-0.
 
Garcia singled to left and designated player Angela Agurkis reached on a throwing error that allowed two more runs to come in, capping off the six-run inning.
 
DSU responded with two runs in the top of the third, but UWF got one back with a grounder from Mayo that brought in Wilson.
 
Scoring held off until the sixth, when West Florida put another four-spot in the board. Wilson started things with a single that brought in Jacquelynne Poling, before a pair of doubles from McLellan and Howard gave UWF an 11-3 lead and finished off the game.
 
GAME 2: UWF 14, DSU 0 (5 innings)
Kelsey Sweatt spun her first shutout of the season and improved to 5-1 in Game 2, as she threw five innings of two-hit ball. The junior struck out seven batters and did not walk any in her most dominant start of the year. She also retired 13 of the final 15 batters she faced in the start.
 
And West Florida was just as dominant at the plate, with a season-high 14 runs scored. Five Argonauts had multiple RBIs in the game – Howard, Gilbert, Garcia, Agurkis, and Ashley McNally.
 
UWF wasted no time in scoring, as Agurkis hit a bases-clearing double in the first to score Howard, Gilbert, and Garcia.
 
The Argos stretched the lead to 10-0 after a seven-run second inning. It started with Grace Gilbert's triple down the right field line that scored Howard and Jibrasha Moore, and Garcia followed that with her first home run of the season.
 
McNally then singled to right to bring in two runs, and Mallory Vining stole home to wrap up the inning.
 
UWF finished the scoring with a two-run triple from Howard, an RBI double from Gilbert, and another RBI double from Callan Taylor in the third inning.
 
Fans can keep up with the team by following @UWFSoftball on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.