The Texas Volts had already secured a series victory over the Carolina Blaze heading into Monday\u2019s series finale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite gray skies and intermittent rain showers throughout the game, the home team still put on a show for fans. The crowd at Dell Diamond in Round Rock answered the rain with umbrellas, ponchos and unwavering support for a Volts team on a hot streak.<\/p>\n
Behind a shutout performance by pitcher Rachel Garcia, the Volts defeated the Blaze 8-0 in a five-inning run-rule victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you can throw a shutout in this league, you\u2019re doing a great job,\u201d Volts head coach Ricci Woodard said of Garcia\u2019s performance against the Blaze. \u201cHats off (to her.) She\u2019s not just the all-star of yesterday \u2014 she\u2019s the all-star of today, also.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia accumulated eight strikeouts while allowing just three hits across five innings. The 29-year-old\u2019s experience showed as she maintained her poise even in Monday\u2019s suboptimal weather conditions. Her priority, she said after the game, was simply keeping the ball dry and attacking the zone as best she could.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garcia\u2019s performance in the circle helped set the stage for the Volts to thrive on the offensive side of the ball. Infielder Tiare Jennings, who hit one of the Volts\u2019 three home runs of the evening, said that Garcia\u2019s pitching allowed her teammates and herself to play more freely in the batter\u2019s box.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we have a pitcher on the mound today doing what Rachel\u2019s doing, you just feel a lot better as a hitter,\u201d Jennings said. \u201cYou can play (freely). You can attack the zone. You can get your swing off. \u2026 You see a lot more smiles and laughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The smiles and laughter come in the midst of a difficult season for the Volts. Even after the\u00a0 three-game win streak, the team remains last in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League standings with a record of 6\u201315.<\/p>\n
The Blaze sit just one place above the Volts but failed to capitalize on the road during the series. Despite the team\u2019s struggles, former Texas catcher Reese Atwood still had a strong showing this past weekend just 30 minutes up the road from the Forty Acres.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While a bit quieter in game three, Atwood started at catcher throughout the series and scored a three-run home run on Saturday to put her team up 3-0. However, the Volts would ultimately come back and win 4-3 to clinch the series.<\/p>\n
Volts infielder Leighann Goode, who played beside Atwood for four years at Texas, loved watching Atwood play well after Monday\u2019s game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love seeing her succeed,\u201d Goode said. \u201cShe\u2019s taking off for them right now, and she\u2019s doing a great job. Just seeing that big smile on her face \u2026 I know she hit a home run against us, but the smile was never bigger when I saw her run around the bases, so I was proud of her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goode has also put together a strong resume at the professional level, accumulating nine hits and 16 starts so far this season for the Volts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Neither the Volts nor the Blaze have seasons they envisioned, as both teams carry losing records into the final stretch of the 2026 season. Still, each has an opportunity to end the season on a positive note.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Volts take on the Oklahoma City Spark in the first game of the series tomorrow at Dell Diamond. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Volts had already secured a series victory over the Carolina Blaze heading into Monday\u2019s series finale.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-372252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}