Poised and ready

By Gene Schallenberg
Sports

May 05, 2008 12:31 am

— The Bearkats softball team was hoping to end the regular season on a good note, but Texas-San Antonio saw it different. Despite seeing the Kats rally to tie the game in the late innings, the Roadrunners rebounded in extra innings to defeat the Kats 6-4 on Senior Day at Bearkat Softball Stadium on Sunday.
“We fought back hard,” SHSU senior shortstop Tanya Hooser said. “It would’ve been nice to win in your last home game. But it was a team effort and we came back.”
It had been a low-scoring series prior to Sunday’s contest with a total of four runs scored between both squads in the doubleheader on Saturday, but the Roadrunners put an end to that with a four-run third inning to take the early lead.
Texas-San Antonio had loaded the bases early in the inning and had only one out when Krista Sitka drilled a line drive that skimmed just over the top of Hooser’s glove to score Kim Chavez and Rudi Cantu.
The Roadrunners added a couple more runs to give UTSA a 4-0 advantage.
But Sam Houston’s Lauren Burns gave the Kats some life with a two-out double to right field to score Amanda Lindsey and Tiffani Woodrum.
In the next inning, Amy Brown hit a single to center field with baserunners on the corners and two outs, scoring Sarah Parich to put the Bearkats down just a run.
Lindsey followed that up with a looper into shallow right field to bring in Hooser for the tying run.
That would carry the game into extra innings where Sitka powered in two runs on a homer over the left field fence. That would be enough for the Roadrunners as the Kats couldn’t answer in the bottom of the eighth.
“I thought the girls fought hard,” SHSU head coach Bob Brock said. “They came back and we just didn’t quite put it together.”
With the loss, Sam Houston earned the seventh seed in the Southland Conference Tournament this week in San Marcos. In the first round, the Kats will face the sixth-seeded Nicholls State Colonels.
In their previous meeting, the Kats swept the Colonels in a three-game series in Huntsville.
The winner will play No. 3 Texas-San Antonio at a scheduled time of 6:30 p.m.