Freshman catcher Aly Smith drove in a career-high three and junior right-hander Devin Brown tossed a one-hit shutout as the fourth-seeded University of South Alabama softball picked up a 5-0 win Wednesday over No. 5 seed Texas-Arlington on the opening day of the 2017 Sun Belt Conference Championships held at the Troy Softball Complex on the campus of Troy University.
South Alabama (34-18) will now face top-seeded and 14th-ranked Louisiana-Lafayette at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. The winner of that contest will automatically advance to the semifinal round of the league tournament.
The shutout win for Brown was her 12th of the season and bested her single-season mark in that category that she set a year ago.