Austerman’s triples help St. Joe upset Liberty
Junior shortstop Kali Austerman broke a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the sixth inning, lifting Port St. Joe to a 3-2 win over visiting Liberty County on St. Patrick’s Day and giving Lissa Walker her 701st career victory as a softball coach.
In the bottom of the first, Austerman had tripled in Addy Creekmore to give the Tiger Sharks a 1-0 lead, but the Bulldogs tied the game with a run of their own in the second.
St. Joe reclaimed the lead in the third, courtesy of Austerman’s sacrifice fly to drive in Creekmore, but Liberty County knotted the score in the fifth.
In the Tiger Shark sixth, Austerman led off with her second triple of the game, and four batters later with the bases loaded, freshman outfielder Bre Fleming’s grounder handcuffed the Bulldog first baseman long enough for Austerman to score.
Brooklyn Bishop earned the win for the Sharks, who evened their season record at 5-5 with the win.
Meet the Editor
Wendy Weitzel, The Star’s digital editor, joined the news outlet in August 2021, as a reporter covering primarily Gulf County.
Prior to then, she interned for Oklahoma-based news wire service Gaylord News and for Oklahoma City-based online newspaper NonDoc.com during her four years at the University of Oklahoma, from which she graduated in May with degrees in online journalism and political science.
While at OU, Weitzel was selected as Carnegie-Knight News21 Investigative Fellow among 30 top journalism students from around the country. She also was senior editor managing a 12-person newsroom in coordination with Oklahoma Watch, a non-profit news organization in eastern Oklahoma.