FHSU Athletics
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Fort Hays State split a pair of games to open its 2026 season on Friday (Feb. 13). The Tigers won a back-and-forth battle against East Central 8-7 in their first game of the day, but came up short 9-5 against No. 11 ranked Southern Arkansas in the second contest. While FHSU opened the season 1-1, ECU moved to 2-9 overall and SAU remained perfect for the season, now 12-0.
Abbey Duarte had a big day at the plate with two home runs and seven RBIs over the pair of games. Claire Kirby picked up a win in the pitching circle in relief, while Mackenzie Hudson picked up a save.
Fort Hays State 8, East Central 7
The Tigers had to put together a comeback to take the first contest of the day. They started with the lead by scoring a pair of runs in the first inning on a fielding error. East Central eventually leveled the score with single runs in the first and second innings.
Abbey Duarte delivered a big blow in the third with a three-run home run, scoring Peyton Shepard and Hannah Green who started the inning with singles.
East Central kept applying pressure by scoring twice in both the third and fourth innings, taking a 6-5 lead. ECU pitcher Brooklyn Charnock helped her own cause by hitting a two-run home run in the fourth to give her team the lead.
The Tigers rallied past ECU in the sixth inning with three runs. Singles by Lilliana Ramirez-Johnson and Alexis Mohr led to a Kory Schoenfeld two-RBI double and a Shepard RBI triple, making the score 8-6 in favor of FHSU.
Charnock helped ECU again in the sixth with an RBI double, creating a one-run game, but Mackenzie Hudson entered in relief to shut down any other scoring from ECU. Hudson worked a 1-2-3 inning in the seventh for a save. Two of her five outs recorded were strikeouts.
Claire Kirby picked up a win in 1.2 innings of relief, allowing one run on two hits. Solana Carpenter started for FHSU and recorded an out before handing the ball to Kamaya Soniea-Harris, who recorded a pair of strikeouts in 3.1 innings of work. Shepard, Green, and Ramirez-Johnson all had a pair of hits in the game.
#11 Southern Arkansas 9, Fort Hays State 5
The Tigers took on perennially strong Southern Arkansas in the second contest of the day. FHSU fell behind 6-0 through two innings before tightening the margin as the game progressed. The Tigers scored single runs in the third and fourth and then two in the fifth to get back within two runs at 6-4.
In the third, three-straight singles by Kaydawn Haag, Kory Schoenfeld, and Peyton Shepard led to an Abbey Duarte sacrifice fly RBI. Audrey Gillespie doubled in the fourth to set up an RBI double by Haag. In the fifth, Hannah Green walked to set up Duarte's second homer of the day, a two-run shot.
The Muleriders picked up a run in the fifth and two in the sixth to go back up by five before the Tigers scored their final run in the seventh. Schoenfeld led off the seventh with a triple and then scored on a Duarte RBI single.
Duarte, Gillespie, Haag, and Schoenfeld all finished with two hits in the game. Duarte drove in four runs.
Korryn Johnson, Myah Wolfe, and Mackenzie Hudson all pitched and allowed three runs each. Wolfe went the longest in the game with 3.1 innings of relief work. Johnson recorded the only strikeout among the three.
Fort Hays State will play twice again on Saturday (Feb. 14), taking on Southwestern Oklahoma State at 11 a.m. and Arkansas-Monticello at 1:30 p.m. Live stats will be available for just the first game tomorrow.