Boxscore

RUSTON ? Louisiana Tech freshman Krissi Oliver scattered five hits in a complete game 5-0 shutout victory over Utah State Friday evening at the Lady Techster Softball Complex.

Oliver (5-8) pitched Tech (11-23, 2-8) to its second consecutive victory and gives the Lady Techsters a two-game lead over the Aggies in the conference standings. The Glendale, Arizona, native won her third straight decision for Tech.

?Krissi did a good job of getting Utah State?s hitters to hit ground balls that we could handle,? said Tech head coach Sarah Dawson. ?When you have a pitcher working that hard you don?t want to give the other team extra outs. The couple of times we made mistakes defensively, she showed a lot of maturity out there and proved she could handle the situations.?

Tech took an early 1-0 lead in the first inning when Emma Barnes led off with her sixth triple of the season before Rochelle Sandberg drove Barnes home with an RBI groundout.

The Lady Techsters upped the lead to 2-0 in the bottom of the fourth when Carly White doubled to right center, driving home Jessica Elson who had led the frame off with a single.

A three-run fifth inning put the game away for Tech. Sandberg picked up her second RBI of the game with a double to left field, scoring Barnes who led off with a walk. Regan Clark followed with a two-run double to center field.

Barnes, Elson and Ashley Cameron led Tech?s 10-hit attack with two hits each while Sandberg, Clark, Christine Echols and White each added one hit.

?We challenged them to have good, quality at bats, and stay focused and locked in regardless of the score,? Dawson said. ?It took a while for the middle of our lineup to get going, but eventually they did.?

Leslie Higley (0-9) picked up the loss for Utah State (5-28, 0-6), allowing five earned runs on 10 hits and two walks in 6.0 innings of work.

Tech and Utah State will complete the three-game series with a doubleheader starting at 2 p.m. Saturday.