Last week, Southeastern softball came back from its long Texas slate to shut out Southern Miss, Houston Christian and Jackson State in six innings or less after losing a few games on the road.

Before coming back into town, SLU completed its away stretch by sweeping out East Texas A&M for its first SLC series. 

Once they arrived back in Hammond, the Lady Lions continued to dominate and defeated Southern Miss 11-3 in six innings, scoring at least one run in every inning. 

Senior outfielder Colleen Kulivan finished the game with the most hits and tied for the most RBIs with senior left fielder Shenita Tucker, who shared four RBIs with her.

Kulivan also found her way home three times, once early in the game and later with an inside-the-park home run, before she finished the game off by touching home plate in the bottom of the sixth.

Following their early-inning victory on Tuesday night, SLU went on to secure a conference sweep by shutting out Houston Christian in both games of Friday’s doubleheader, ending before the seventh inning, and taking the series on Saturday.

The Lady Lions were left unanswered as the Lady Huskies struggled to score a single run on Friday, with excellent pitching from the mound. 

Senior pitcher Macie LaRue opened the series with a strong showing alongside freshman pitcher Bre Clark, who threw for a combined nine strikeouts and limited HCU to only one hit throughout the first game.

In the second game, freshman pitcher Katherine Thiessen continued to hold the Lady Huskies with five strikeouts and one hit in her five-inning debut.

To close out the series, Houston Christian had an early lead over Southeastern in the second inning until junior pitcher Haley Crawford stopped Houston Christian’s offensive push and was later relieved to keep the lead the Lady Lions took in the third.

On Friday, during the second game of the series, senior infielder Maria Detillier became the first player to complete a cycle on the team since 2010 and helped the Lady Lions achieve a new season high with 19 unanswered runs to finish the game with a win over the Lady Huskies.

“It’s something special to look back on, but I’m just proud of our team, seeing our offense coming alive and how we played this whole series after a slow month coming back home,” Detillier said.

On Saturday, SLU fell behind HCU in the second inning by two runs until the team took the lead in the third when Shenita Tucker and junior catcher Blair Walsh drove in three runs.

Junior infielder Brilee Ford closed the game in the fifth inning with a grand slam to increase the team’s lead to 13-3. 

Later on, Ford explained that the trust that grew stronger from the fall and through the beginning of the season has been a huge factor in the Lady Lions staying ahead against opponents.

“The vibes and energy have been good going into conference play with the hard work we put in through the fall and the trust between each other to hold everyone accountable has been making everything fall into place,” Ford said.

After the Lady Lions completed their long travel schedule and won both of their first two conference series, Head Coach Rick Fremin described the road trip as long, but really set the team up for success.

“This had been the hardest schedule we had during my time with the program, playing those top programs along the way in extremely tough environments against very talented line-ups that made it to the softball world series, I would say, really paid for and prepared us for conference play,” Said Fremin.

Southeastern shut out another opponent this season on Tuesday against Jackson State, 9-0 in five innings, extending SLU’s win streak to nine games, with six being run-rule wins. 

Starting the game with no runs in the first two innings, senior outfielder Kailey Dixon broke through with the first run of the game and helped Southeastern rally in eight more runs.

Sophomore Hallie Burns, Freshman Celia Lamkin and Senior Tyler Obure kept JSU to only one base hit through the night while they kept any runners from reaching home plate.

Next up, the Lady Lions will compete for the Cypress trophy this weekend in a conference series against Northwestern State.

The series starts with a doubleheader on Friday, March 20, at 4 p.m., and will finish with the final game on Saturday, March 21, at noon. 

All games will be livestreamed on ESPN+ and can be heard on KSLU 90.9 The Lion.

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