Tech Drops Contest with No. 22 Northwestern

CLEARWATER, FLA. – Georgia Tech softball (3-7) couldn’t keep up with No. 22 Northwestern (5-2) on Saturday morning, falling 6-19 in five innings on Eddie C. Moore Field No. 3 at the Shriners Children’s Clearwater Invitational.

QUICK HITS

• The Yellow Jackets hit two home runs today, with senior Jin Sileo and Madison Dobbins hitting a pair of home run in the fourth inning.
• Tech has hit 16 home runs over its last six games, the most in a six-game stretch in 13 seasons (18 HR – March 4-13, 2011).
• Sileo’s two-run home run was her second of the season, giving her multiple homeruns in a single season for just the second time in her career and first since her freshman year in 2021.
• She also drove in Paige Vukadinovich with a double in the second inning, giving her three RBI for the day, tying her career high, set in just her 2^nd-career start for GT, back on Feb. 12, 2021.
• Dobbins’ home run came just one batter after Sileo, her third HR of the year, matching her career-best for a single season.
• Dobbins leads the team with eight RBI so far this season.
• Senior 3B Mallorie Black reached base twice, with a walk and a hit-by-pitch. Her career-best hitting streak ends at five games but her on-base streak extends to six.
• The Cumming, Ga. product is now 8 for 11 with two walks, two doubles, a home run, 4 RBI and a team-leading six runs scored this weekend. She is slashing .727/.786/1.182 while facing some of the highest ranked teams in the nation.
• Sophomore outfielder Paige Vukadinovich recorded the first two-double game of her collegiate career, coming around to score twice thanks to Sileo.
• Vukadinovich is now 5 for 10 with three doubles and five runs scored so far at the Clearwater Invitational.
• Senior Sara Beth Allen got the Jackets on the board in the first inning with an RBI single to drive in Ella Edgmon.
• Graduate Senior Tiffany Domingue continued to swing a hot bat, driving in Black with a single in the third inning.
• Domingue has driven in six Jackets so far this weekend, tied with Sileo for the most on the team.
• Senior pitcher Blake Neleman made her seventh appearance of the season, starting and pitching the first 2.2 innings, it was her 130^th as a Yellow Jacket, the fourth-most in program history. She is nine appearances away from joining Hope Rush and Whitney Humphreys in a tie for the second most all-time.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Neleman made her third start of the season, pitching the opening 2.2 innings before giving way to Makayla Coffield. Coffield, who was pitching in her third straight game, worked a groundout to get out of the third inning and allowed just one run in the fourth, off a sacrifice fly, before running into trouble in the fifth and handing the ball off to Chandler Dennis and Sophia Voyles for the final two outs.

At the plate, the Jackets scored in each of the first four innings, using an Allen single to get on the board in the first before Sileo’s double drove in Vukadinovich in the second. Domingue kept the runs coming in the third with her single to drive in Black, before a three-run, two-home run bottom of the fourth gave the Jackets some life, 6-10. Northwestern would hang a nine spot in the top of the fifth and kept GT from scoring to bring the game to an end after five innings.

UP NEXT­­
The Jackets scheduled game vs. No. 2 Tennessee was cancelled in the middle of the fourth inning due to rain. Tech is scheduled to take on No. 6 Oklahoma State tomorrow at 12:30 pm on ESPN+, weather permitting.

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