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Softball Sweeps UAB
April 1, 2007
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UAB at Houston Box Score (PDF)
HOUSTON - Amanda Grote belted a second-inning grand slam coupled with an Angel Shamblin three-hit shutout as the University of Houston softball team racked up a 6-0 victory over UAB Sunday afternoon in the series finale of a Conference USA weekend series televised by CSTV at the Cougar Softball Stadium. Houston (30-11, 11-1 C-USA) won its 30th game for the sixth consecutive season and has now won 29 of its last 30 games against current non-ranked opponents. "This was a big game for our program not only because it was on a national television stage but because it showed that we can follow up with a strong series after having a slip-up at Memphis last weekend," head coach Kyla Holas said. "I challenge the team before the game to have UAB play at our pace. We didn't do that yesterday but did an excellent job of setting the tempo today." The Cougars opened the scoring, placing a four-spot on the board in the second inning. Laura Durham legged out an infield single before being forced out at second base on a Haley Valis bunt. Laurie Wagner and Shamblin drew back-to-back walks to load the bases. Grote took a 1-0 offering over the centerfield fence for her first career Cougar home run to give Houston a 4-0 advantage. "We've emphasized over the last couple of weeks of picking out good pitches to hit," Holas said. "Amanda had been more passive at the plate. I talked with her right before her at-bat about staying patient at the plate and picking out her pitch to hit." "My goal at the plate was just to get a hard solid hit," Grote said. "I knew we had runners on, and I wanted to find a way to score them. Home runs come when you least expect to hit them." That would be all of the run support that Shamblin would need in the circle. The junior right-hander established a program single season record, tossing her seventh shutout of the season en route to her 19th victory. Shamblin (19-6) carried a perfect game into the fourth inning after setting the tone early with four strikeouts in her first five hitters faced. She recorded 11 strikeouts and didn't surrender a walk on 96 pitches. A Lindsay Stanley infield single broke up the Florida natives bid at perfection in the fourth inning. The junior right-hander was touched for just three hits and is now 8-0 in C-USA action. "It was difficult for Angel yesterday dealing with the rain delays and wet balls," Holas said. "She showed her best stuff today and came out clicking on all cylinders." "I made some mistakes yesterday, but I was focused on pitching my game today," Shamblin said. "I had one inning where I allowed a couple of hits but battled back to get a strikeout to close the inning." Haley Valis added a two-run blast in the third inning for the final margin of 6-0. Jessica Valis and Elaina Nordstrom also added hits and are the only Cougars to hit safely in all 12 of UH's conference games. Valis' infield single in the first inning allowed her to pass Jaci Gonzalez (2003-06) for the No. 5 position on the program's career hits last. Houston continues its Conference USA slate with a weekend series at UTEP. Friday's doubleheader against the Miners begins at 5pm followed by a Saturday single game at 1pm. All games of the UTEP series will have live stats via GameTracker on UHCougars.com "UTEP is a big series," Holas said. "It's a short week of practice in addition to traveling before playing a doubleheader on Friday. We need to stay focused on controlling the things that we have control over." "Our goal is to win a conference championship," Grote said. "We need to put in another solid week of practice to get closer to reaching our goal."
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