Three home runs and Tori Vidales helped diminish an early seesaw contest to lift the Texas A&M softball team to a 13-9 win over North Texas at the Aggie Softball Complex.
The Mean Green (14-22) elected to sit their starting pitcher for the night, freshman Monique Garcia, after allowing a single from Aggies Reagan Boenker and five runs beforehand. Into the game came pitcher Madison Thompson to halt the A&M charge.
Nevertheless, A&M freshman Tori Vidales continued her success, smacking a home run to center field to reclaim the lead for good at 7-5. Vidales finished going a perfect 4-for-4 while also adding four RBIs to her sheet. She now has 12 homers on the year, which leads the team. Head coach Jo Evans said that she was elated with the freshman’s performance.
“She’s had a lot of great nights and this is one of them,” A&M head coach Jo Evans said. “But, it’s not unusual to see her have a game like that. She’s just such a good hitter and particularly great with two strikes. She’s a tough out, even [when] pitchers get ahead over her and she finds ways to comeback and hit home runs and hit balls in the gap with two strikes…this is an expectation that we’ll see these kinds of nights from her for the next four years.”
The hot hitters sported the green jerseys at the beginning, however, as North Texas gained a 2-0 lead on A&M in the first inning with consecutive home runs from Taylor Schoblocher and Kat Strunk.
The Aggies (31-10) answered with two runs of their own to tie it up at 2-all to end the first. Erica Russell started the offensive charge by reaching first base off an illegal pitch to complete the walk. Tori Vidales put runners at the corners with a bullet to left field, and Russell later hopped home from an illegal pitch. An April Ryan single to right earned her a RBI as Vidales was able to score. Vidales spoke about the importance of teamwork by simply getting on base. 
“I always love getting to the plate, you know, hitting is kind of my thing,” Vidales said. “I love hitting and I grew up hitting all the time. It’s just really fun to get up there and know that you can always do better. The fact that you can get up there and help your teammates out, and even if you’re not having a good day, you can get on and give someone else a chance to get a RBI.”
Building off their momentum, starting pitcher Katie Marks produced a 1-2-3 second and third outing. A&M succeeded in its turn with the bats again the next time out, taking the lead at 5-2 off a Cali Lanphear home run, her sixth on the year.
Schoblocher fired back with a triple to open the top of the fourth. Strunk followed with a RBI single, and two more batters added singles to load the bases. Kelli Schkade and Karly Williams tacked on a pair of scores to tie it 5-5 by reaching first on fielder’s choice and with a single to right field, respectively.
Three Aggies in Russell, Vidales and Lanphear added insurance in the fifth with singles from all sides of the ballpark, respectively. The one from Vidales scored two in particular after bouncing it off the left center wall, allowing Clopton and Boenker to reach home plate. When the Mean Green cut the deficit to four with a two-run home run in the sixth, Breanna Dozier retaliated with a two-RBI bomb of her own to regain the six-run advantage.
North Texas threatened again with a couple runs late in the seventh, but Rachel Fox came in for relief to earn the last out.
Texas A&M will continue its home stand this weekend to host the Auburn Tigers in a 3-game series.
“This was the perfect situation in a way,” Lanphear said. “For our pitchers, we don’t want that many runs scored against us. But as hitters, it was really good preparation for this weekend because I think that’s what it’s going to be like. I think it’s going to be a battle of the hitters this weekend. For them to put up that many runs and us to comeback, I think that’s really good practice for this weekend.”