The home run trot was like riding a bike for El Dorado native Marissa Rice. Rice got to stroll around the bases on Friday after nailing a three-run shot over the leftfield fence in Belhaven University’s 14-4 win over UT-Dallas.
For Rice, it was her first collegiate homer.
“It was a great feeling to hit that home run,” Rice said. “We had already hit six between the two games, so I was glad to keep it going. I haven’t hit one since high school, where I hit a good few, so it was nice to have that feeling again.”
The Blazers are 23-6 on the season and riding a six-game winning streak. Rice, a junior catcher, is batting .429 in a reserve role and as a pinch hitter.
“This season is going great. Right now, we’re tied for first in conference, and we’re number 10 in the country for D3 softball,” she said. “Hoping this Wednesday, we will move up, after sweeping two conferences series back to back. We have a lot of talent this year and it’s huge. We play the number four team in the country not this upcoming weekend but the next, ETBU. They are always top in the conference and finish far in postseason. It will be a great series. It’s between us and ETBU for conference so it’s a huge deciding factor for the conference tournament.”