Published: March 26, 2008 10:21 pm      

Bearkats avoid sweep

Survant, Mikulin homer to lead Sam Houston past McNeese State 5-4

Staring a possible Southland Conference series sweep in the face, the Bearkats finally broke out of a recent batting funk at just the right time Wednesday afternoon.

Down 4-0 to McNeese State, the Sam Houston State softball squad got a monster three-run home run from freshman Alex Survant to tie the game in the third inning and sophomore Morgan Mikulin added a solo blast in the fifth en route to a 5-4 victory at Bearkat Softball Stadium.

After dropping the first two games of the series to the Cowgirls (12-24, 5-7 in SLC) on Tuesday, the Bearkats avoided the sweep to improve to 7-5 in conference and 16-17 overall.

“All year long, it has been our offense that has had a lot of problems,” SHSU head coach Bob Brock said. “We do have a pretty good team and our pitching has been strong even in defeat. Sometimes it just takes a big hit and having a freshman hit a big three-run home run just might jump-start us a little bit. I was happy with that, and maybe we will continue to do better at the plate.”

Things looked bleak in the early innings as the Cowgirls jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a solo home run by Jenny Clay, her second of the series, off Mikulin, who got the start in the circle for SHSU. McNeese then added three more runs in the top of the second on RBI singles by Lindsey Langner, Liz Morvant and Clay.

Junior Brandi Crnkovic got the Bearkats out of a bases-loaded jam in the second frame and shut the Cowgirls down over the final 5 1/3 innings to pick up the win. She only gave up two hits and struck out four batters to push her season record to 7-10.

With Crnkovic cruising in the circle, all Sam Houston needed was a little run support and Survant delivered in the bottom of the third. Juniors Sarah Parich and Kendra Spivey got the rally started with a pair of singles and freshman Hailey Wiginton moved the runners into scoring position with a grounder to the pitcher.

Junior catcher Casie Everitt knocked in the Bearkats’ first run of the game with an RBI single. Then with two outs, Survant cleared the bases with her first round-tripper of the season to tie the game at 4.

“We really did need to win this game,” Survant said. “We have really been focusing on our hitting, so I swung hard because I knew I needed to get some kind of a hit. It’s a good thing that the two runners in front of me got on because that helped us out.”

Crnkovic only allowed one base runner in the fourth and fifth innings to put Sam Houston in contention to win the game. Then with one out in the bottom of the fifth, Mikulin launched a deep fly ball to left field that cleared the fence for what would prove to be the game-winning run.

The Cowgirls did get a runner on in the seventh with one out, but Crnkovic got Langner to fly out to left field and Morvant to ground out to the circle to seal the victory. The Bearkats cranked out seven hits in the contest, only three less than the previous two games combined, 3-2 and 3-1 losses to McNeese State on Tuesday.

Survant led Sam Houston at the plate, going 1-for-2 with three RBIs. Senior shortstop Tanya Hooser also added a pair of singles for the Kats, who host a big SLC series this weekend against Texas-Arlington, beginning with a doubleheader Saturday at 1 p.m.

“We needed to grab a little momentum heading into this weekend, and I feel like we got it today. The girls responded,” Brock said. “But give McNeese some credit. They were tough this week and played real well.”