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BATON ROUGE, La. – Stellar pitching was the story line of the day for Eastern Illinois softball as the Panthers went 2-0 on day one of the Mardi Gras Tournament.  Olivia Price tossed a no-hitter in a 6-0 win over Alabama State before Alexa Rehmeier had 4.2 innings of no hit relief during EIU's 10-2 win over Southern.

EIU 6, ALABAMA STATE 0
Olivia Price was razor sharp on Friday afternoon in the opening game of the Mardi Gras Classic as she allowed just one base runner tossing the eighth no-hitter in school history during a 6-0 Eastern Illinois victory over Alabama State.

Price improved to 1-1 on the season allowing just Leah Richardson to walk in the top of the sixth before she was caught stealing.  Price faced the minimum 21 batters in the game finishing with nine strikeouts.

The Panthers provided Price all the offense she would need with three runs in the first against ASU starter Ashley Pye (0-1).  Morgan Lewis walked and came around to score what proved to be the game winning run.  Jaylen Prichard singled and scored in the inning with Price also coming in to score as she went in as a pinch-runner for Rachel Kaufman who had a single in the first.

EIU added punch to its offense later in the game with three solo home runs by Lindy Milkowski, Kaufman and Briana Gonzalez. 

Prichard, Kaufman and Gonzalez all had two hits in the game for EIU.

EIU 10, SOUTHERN 2 (6)
Eastern Illinois capped a successful first day of the Mardi Gras Tournament with a 10-2 win over Southern University scoring four runs in the top of the sixth to pick up the run-rule decision. 

Southern jumped out in the first inning to a 1-0 lead with an RBI double by Alana Mark. 

EIU manufactured two runs of its own in the top of the second with Briana Gonzalez driving in one of them with a sacrifice fly.  Gonzalez would score later in the inning putting EIU up 2-1 early.

The Jaguars tied the game at 2-2 in the second with Kameryn Adkins leading off the inning with double and coming around to score on a wild pitch.

Alexa Rehmeier would enter in relief for EIU and shut the door on the Southern offense.  Rehmeier (1-1) did not allow a hit in 4.2 innings of relief with six strikeouts.

EIU took the lead in the third with two-run homerun by Jaylen Prichard and never looked back.  The Panthers tacked on two in the fourth and four in the sixth including another two-run home run.

Prichard, Lindy Milkowski and Morgan Lewis all had two hits to lead the EIU offense. 

EIU improved to 2-5 overall.  Southern fell to 0-6 with Kairah Williams (0-3) taking the loss in the circle.