For the second straight night, the Texas Volts let the long ball do the talking.
A day after setting an Athletes Unlimited Softball League single-game record with five home runs, Texas hit two more on Wednesday and scored five of its six runs on the swing of the bat, beating the Chicago Bandits 6-4 at Dell Diamond to complete a two-game sweep — the franchise’s first series win of the 2026 season and its first back-to-back victories of the year.
The win moved the Volts to 3-7 and completed their first series sweep of the 2026 season. Across the two games, Texas hit seven home runs from six different batters, accounting for 11 of its 12 runs in the series.
“Hats off to my group today,” Volts head coach Ricci Woodard said afterward. “I thought we came out aggressive, swung the bats well. We got ourselves in a bind in the very first inning, and got ourselves right out of that bind, and I think that kind of set the tone for the game for us.”
That early bind came in the top of the first, when Chicago loaded the bases before the Volts turned an inning-ending double play — a 6-4-3 twin killing that ended the threat.
Texas struck first in the second. With two on and two out, veteran infielder Sierra Romero turned on the first pitch she saw from Chicago starter Amber Fiser and drove it to center field for a three-run homer — her second of the season.
Chicago answered in the fourth on Mac Barbara’s two-run shot to right, trimming the lead to 3-2. The Volts responded immediately. Catcher Dejah Mulipola, making her first start of the season after rejoining the team, led off the bottom half with a single, and outfielder Jalia Lassiter followed with her first career AUSL home run, a two-run drive to left-center that pushed the margin to 5-2.
“It’s just added a calming factor to this group that they needed,” Woodard said of getting Mulipola and pitcher Ally Carda back in the fold. “It’s just been a nice turnaround for us in the last 48 hours. It’s been fun to watch.”
Carda, a Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medalist and UCLA standout who joined the Volts from the Japan Diamond League, made her AUSL debut in the circle. She allowed two runs — one earned — on two hits over three innings before turning the game over with the lead.
“Allie just hits her spots well, and she just attacks the zone,” Woodard said. “It’s just fun to watch her paint, because she knows exactly what she’s doing and what she needs to do. She took accountability for the pitch she hung that left the yard. You knew we were never really out of it, even with the bases loaded early on, because you know she’s going to paint the corners and get us ground balls.”
Aliyah Binford handled the rest. The two-way standout worked the final four innings in relief, allowing two runs on two hits with three strikeouts to earn the win and improve to 2-1. Rylie Boone tacked on an insurance run in the sixth with a bunt single that scored Lassiter, and Sam Williams’ two-run homer in the seventh closed Chicago’s scoring at 6-4.
For Romero, the back-to-back wins were a chance to bank some momentum after a grinding stretch.
“The highs are high and the lows are freaking low. You just have to keep working through it,” Romero said. “Even when I’m striking out, I want my strikeouts to be swings. I want to still feel and be competitive in the box.”
“I think the big thing for us is we take that momentum and bottle it up,” she added. “We’ve been needing that. These last two were really good to reset us.”
Among the youngest contributors was rookie infielder Leighann Goode, the former Texas Longhorn who has bounced around the infield to keep her bat in the lineup.
“I’m a team player, and I want to be on the field with this group of girls,” Goode said. “Whether I’m at third or second, first — wherever they need me.”
Asked which veterans she leans on as a rookie fresh off college softball’s biggest stage, Goode looked to Sierra Romero beside her.
“I love playing under her, and the knowledge that she brings to me,” Goode said of Romero. “There’s stuff that I still don’t know about the game being a pro, and being able to learn from her — now that we have Allie here, I told her I was excited to finally see her pitch, and I got to play behind her. So just feeding off of them.”
The Volts return home to open a three-game set against the Portland Cascade on Friday, June 26.
Anthony Rivera, Dell Diamond press box. Stats and quotes from the June 24 postgame press conference.