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Softball Swept By No. 4 Texas A&M
March 8, 2007
HOUSTON - The University of Houston softball team lost 3-0 and 4-3 to No. 4 Texas A&M Wednesday evening in the program's first-ever "Breast Cancer Awareness" in-front of a program record 912 fans at the Cougar Softball Stadium. Houston (17-9) traded in its traditional white uniforms for pink jerseys to support Breast Cancer Awareness. The jerseys were a part of a silent auction that was be held during the doubleheader. All of the proceeds from the auction along with the ticket revenues were donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Houston Affiliate. "It was a fantastic event," head coach Kyla Holas said. "I was really pleased with the crowd that came out and what we were able to accomplish for the Komen Foundation." Veronica Nordstrom, a breast cancer survivor and mother of Cougar starting catcher Elaina Nordstrom, threw out the ceremonial first pitch to her daughter. "I tried not to get too emotional," Nordstrom said. "It was really touching to catch the first pitch from my mom because I love her so much." Game one of the doubleheader stayed scoreless until the sixth inning when Texas A&M (21-2) pushed three runs across. Sharonda McDonald laid down a one-out bunt and stole second base. She came across on a Macie Marrow single to left centerfield that scooted off of Katie Bush. The run ended Angel Shamblin's consecutive scoreless inning streak at 37.1 innings Jamie Hinshaw drove Marrow home with a RBI-single to put the Aggies ahead 2-0. Two batters later, Amanda Scarborough knocked a double for the final margin of 3-0. Scarborough also fired seven shutout innings with eight strikeouts to improve to 9-2, while Shamblin was tagged with the loss to fall to 10-4. Texas A&M grabbed a 1-0 advantage in the first inning of the second game, but Houston fought back to score the equalizer in the bottom of the frame. Nordstrom knocked a double to left centerfield that scored Jessica Valis, who reached on a leadoff single. Christa Raley opened the Cougar second inning with a single to left field and moved to second base on a wild pitch. Houston took a 2-1 lead as Amanda Grote produced a two-out single to score Raley. Jessica Valis followed by smacking a RBI-triple to put the Cougars ahead 3-1. A couple of Cougar errors in the third and fourth inning allowed Texas A&M to knot the score at 3-3. A Macie Morrow solo home run on a 3-1 pitch in the seventh inning pushed the Aggies to the sweep. "We felt like we were in control being ahead 3-1," Valis said. "There's no reason that we should have lost game two. We made a couple of critical mistakes in key situations. The frustrating thing is that it's not they did, it's what we didn't do." Barbie Love (2-2) was the tough-luck loser. The Manvel native matched a career-best with nine strikeouts. The only ball to leave the infield on Love was the Morrow homer. "Barbie had a fantastic outing and continued to get better as the game went on," Holas said. "There is always room for improvement. If we can get her to fine tune in certain situations, we'll be in good shape. She is starting to emerge at the right time." "I felt that we had solid at-bats and hit the ball well in both games," Holas continued. "The only difference between our team and the Top 25 programs we play is that they capitalize and score runs when they get runners on. We get plenty on runners on, but we need to work on finishing them." Houston heads into Conference USA action this weekend at Southern Miss. First pitch of Saturday's doubleheader against the Golden Eagles is set for 1pm. Live stats will be available on UHCougars.com "We played this type of schedule as a gage to see where we're at," Holas said. "The team knows that they can hang with anyone in the nation. We need to take that type of intensity into our conference play this weekend." "They are always close games and a fight to the finish when we play Southern Miss," Nordstrom said. "We know that we're going to have to play our best to win."
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