BATON ROUGE, La. — Southern University opened its Southwestern Athletic Conference series with a dominant performance, defeating Grambling 10-0 in six innings on Friday evening at Lady Jaguar Field.
 
Behind a strong outing from Aaliyah Zabala and an explosive offensive effort, the Lady Jaguars improved to 11-10 on the season and 1-3 in the SWAC while Grambling fell to 7-13 and 1-3.
 
Zabala delivered a complete-game shutout, allowing five hits with one walk and two strikeouts across six innings to earn the victory and improve to 5-2 on the season. She kept the Lady Tigers off the scoreboard despite a few scattered hits early in the game.
 
Southern broke through in the second inning with a pair of runs. After reaching base and advancing aggressively, Katiana Maldonado stole home to open the scoring before Darbie Richard followed with an RBI single to give the Lady Jaguars a 2-0 lead.
 
The Jaguars blew the game open in the third inning with a four-run frame. Abigail Mitchell started the rally with an RBI double down the left-field line. Maldonado added an RBI single and Jaciee Massey followed with another run-scoring hit as Southern extended its lead to 6-0.
 
Southern continued the pressure in the fourth inning when Laila Clark launched a solo home run to left field, pushing the advantage to 7-0.
 
The Jaguars ended the game in the sixth inning thanks to Mitchell's three-run homer to left, which scored Clark and Asia George to trigger the run-rule victory. Mitchell finished the night 2-for-4 with four RBIs and a home run to lead Southern at the plate.
 
Clark also had a strong performance, going 2-for-3 with three runs scored and a home run, while Maldonado added two hits and two runs. George contributed two hits and swiped two bases as Southern tallied 11 hits and eight RBIs overall.
 
Grambling threatened in the second and fifth innings but could not capitalize, leaving seven runners on base.
 
UP NEXT
Southern and Grambling will play a doubleheader on Saturday with first pitch scheduled for noon.


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