Bulls stretch streak to nine

Senior Karla Claudio’s scoreless streak of 14 1/3 innings was brought to a halt Saturday by a solo home run from Mercer’s Kaylynn Sloat. ORACLE FILE PHOTO/ADAM MATHIEU

USF softball extended its winning streak to nine Saturday with a 5-3 win over Mercer, earning its seventh win in five days.

Down 2-0 after the first inning, USF fought back scoring five straight runs off the bat of freshman Astin Donovan, sophomore Kristen Wyckoff and senior D’Anna Devine who each had an RBI.

“Our kids were pretty relentless, being down 2-0, coming back, answering the bell then putting two more on the board in the second,” coach Ken Eriksen said.

Donovan recorded back-to-back three-RBI games over the weekend, is batting .361 on the season and sits third on the team with 12 RBIs.

Holding a 5-2 lead in the fourth inning, Mercer tacked on another run off a solo homer, ending senior pitcher Karla Claudio’s scoreless inning streak at 14 1/3.

Claudio improved to 4-2 on the season, pitching 6 1/3 innings while striking out a career-high seven batters.

“We’re getting comfortable with each other and realizing where the roles are and what we’re about in certain parts of the lineup with speed in the beginning, speed at the end, people moving the ball in the middle and playing really good defense,” Eriksen said.

Eriksen is now one game shy of 800 career wins. He will get his first shot at the milestone Tuesday as the Bulls take on Yale at 5 p.m. at the USF Softball Complex.

 

Men’s golf makes history

 

For the first time in program history, USF men’s golf cracked the top 10 in both the Golfstat (No. 9) and Golfweek (No. 8) rankings after a strong start to the spring season.

The Bulls got off to a hot start by winning the Gator Invitational on Feb. 15 and followed that performance with a third-place finish at the Querencia Cabo Collegiate  in Los Cabos, Mexico.

These two top finishes add on to a solid fall season where USF secured three top-five finishes, including a win at the Invitational at the Ocean Course back in September.

The Bulls make the drive to Tallahassee on Friday to compete at the Seminole Intercollegiate and to continue their hot start to the spring season.

 

Three Bulls make All-Conference list

 

Along with securing a program-best 24 regular season wins, USF women’s basketball picked up even more accolades as three Bulls received AAC All-Conference selections.

Junior guard Courtney Williams was one of three unanimous selections for the first team after scoring 625 points this season — only the second player to eclipse the 600-point mark.

Junior forward Alisia Jenkins made the All-Conference second team for the second consecutive year after finishing the regular season ranked fourth in the nation with 21 double-doubles.

The dynamic duo weren’t the only ones to make the list as freshman Laura Ferreira made the All-Rookie team after averaging 8.3 points and 4.6 rebounds.