Sydney Lessentine Flirts With Perfect Game as No. 8 Texas A&M Rolls NC State
Sydney Lessentine and the Aggies Take an Early One
Early on this season, there have been a good share of no hitters, and this morning in Clearwater, Fla., Sydney Lessentine of the Texas A&M Aggies would almost serve up another, but not quite.
At 9:00 AM, the No. 8 Texas A&M Aggies faced the NC State Wolfpack, and Lessentine would come out dealing against the Pack. Her movement and command of the zone was evident right off the bat, and NC State could not put that ball in play.
This one was a pitcher’s duel between Lessentine and Rylee Wyman, and you couldn’t help but sit on the edge of the seat seeing who would break first. The stuff was just good, and neither pitcher was afraid to go at the hitters. Lessentine has sneaky stuff that gets you up in the zone. Her curve and rise were on point, and NC State had no luck with her.
Through three complete innings, neither team had reached base at all. However, in the top of the fourth inning, Kennedy Powell worked a 3-2 count and recorded the game’s first hit right up the middle. Then Powell would steal second and advance to third on a throwing error by NC State’s Hannah Church.
Mya Perez would then come up and bring Powell home on a fielder’s choice. It was a close play at the plate as Morgen Talley played it at first and made the throw. Talley was just a split second off on the throw as she had to gain her balance, but being there is no replay in Clearwater, the play could not go under review. Texas A&M took a 1-0 lead, and that whole sequence was really set up off an error. Unfortunate chain of events after such a great start.
Sydney Lessentine just kept dealing, changing speeds and locations. She rang up Carly Short for her fifth strikeout of the day in the bottom of the fourth and still held a perfect game after four innings, retiring all 12 Wolfpack hitters. Then Wyman and the Wolfpack got back to shutting things down. Maddie Sauni did record a base hit but was eliminated on a fielder’s choice with Frankie Vrazel reaching. Still, nothing came of the top of the fifth, and NC State would come up against Lessentine again.
Lessentine would go ahead to put up another hitless inning, and 15 out of 15 NC State hitters had been retired. The Wolfpack just couldn’t time up Sydney perfectly. All three hitters in that inning put their bats on the ball, but several loud strikes as balls were pulled foul then eventual pop outs. She was tossing a gem of a game, and through those five innings, only logged 65 total pitches and no base runners.
Kennedy Powell would lead off the sixth, reaching and advancing all the way to third on a throwing error by Wyman after fielding her bunt. Another mistake had cost the Wolfpack and gave the Aggies a runner 60 feet away. Then Ariel Kowalewski brought her home on an RBI double to center.
The Aggies were now in full control with a 2-0 lead in the top of the sixth, and with NC State’s inability to hit Lessentine to that point or even work a base runner, things were looking good. After a Mya Perez single, the Aggies would have runners on the corners with no outs, and you could see that they had finally caught up to Wyman’s game. Tallen Edwards would bring Kowalewski home on an RBI single to give Texas A&M a 3-0 lead, and that would be the day for Rylee Wyman.
Wyman had a good run of it in this game and turned in a solid outing overall with five innings pitched. A couple of mistakes here and there, and A&M finally catching up to her in the sixth would bring in Kendall Weik, inheriting runners on first and second with no outs.
Then Micaela Wark happened, and the Oklahoma State transfer cleared the bases with a three run homer that she demolished to left. That would comfortably put A&M up 6-0, and just that fast the game had totally flipped and the Aggies were approaching run rule territory as Vrazel recorded a one out RBI single to make it 7-0.
Then Kennedy Powell brought in the seventh run of the inning. The Aggies had now put themselves in position to finish this one out in the bottom of the sixth if the Wolfpack did not score.
Lessentine would come back to try and finish the deal and recorded her sixth strikeout of the day with a strikeout to Taryn Massey to start the bottom of the sixth. After getting behind 2-0 to Teagan Thrunk, Lessentine would battle back to a 2-2 count, but Thrunk would drop a hit to shallow right to spoil the perfect game, no hit bid.
After recording her seventh strikeout of the day, and now just one out left, the Wolfpack would string together some offense all of a sudden and post two runs on Lessentine. Maia Townsend, Carly Short, and Kendall Simmers would all single consecutively, and Thrunk and Townsend would score to make it 8-2. That would also push the game to a seventh inning, and after 5.2 innings pitched, Lessentine would take a seat and Sidne Peters would take the circle. Peters would get out of the inning, and shutdown the Wolfpack’s new found momentum.
The Aggies had just gotten warmed up in the sixth and wanted a little more in the seventh. They would stretch the game back out to an eight run lead after Hailey Golden and Micaela Wark scored. Charli Orsini would come in to finish the game for NC State in the circle after Weik exited following Tallen Edwards’ hit. In the end, Texas A&M was able to record 13 hits in the game and finished strong after three innings of being shut down by Rylee Wyman.
Sidne Peters closed this one out for the Aggies and struck out two in the bottom of the seventh to complete a 10-2 Texas A&M win. This game showed just how fast things can swing after the Aggies exploded for a seven run sixth inning. This was another tough one for NC State. The beginning of the season hasn’t been too forgiving, and for their case, hopefully they will learn and build off of these early goings.
Stay tuned to Mays Sports Media for more softball throughout the season.
