April 14, 2007
San Antonio – Malissa Magee and Brittney Kettinger each tossed shutouts on the mound, while Kelcy Walker and Lindsay Barnes smacked homeruns to lead the offense as St. Mary’s University swept a doubleheader from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, 2-0, 4-0, in Heartland Conference softball action Saturday afternoon at Rattler Field.
Kettinger (Jr., Azle) settled down after a slow start and picked up her seventh shutout of the season in game one. She allowed two base hits in the first three innings before retiring 13 in a row. That streak was finally broken with two outs in the seventh inning on a bloop single to center by Sonya Figueroa. However, Kettinger retired Jessica Mireles to end the threat and the game. She allowed just three hits and no walks, while striking out six. She improved to 10-6 on the season with the win.
The Rattlers picked up an early lead off pitcher Cristan Hogan, but had to wait five more innings before scoring again. With one out in the first Sarah Cooper (Jr., Houston) singled and Walker (Jr., San Antonio) followed with a walk. That brought up Barnes (Jr., San Antonio), who smacked a single to right center, scoring Cooper to give St. M ary’s a 1-0 lead.
That was where things would stay for the next five innings as Hogan allowed just one base hit, a double by Walker in the fourth inning, until one out in the sixth. That was when Walker came to the plate and smacked a Hogan offering over the fence in left for her eighth homerun of the season, giving the Rattlers an insurance run.
In game two Magee (Jr., Houston) was dominant, allowing just one hit and two walks, while striking out 13 to improve to 22-7 this season. The shutout was her 13th of the season, while the one-hitter was her fourth. The only base hit of the game was a looping single to right-center by Kristan Hogan with one out in the fourth inning. Taking the loss for the Falcons was Crystal Ivy, who fell to 3-11, allowing four runs on six hits in six innings of work.
The game was scoreless until the bottom of the third when Lindsay Magaro (Sr., Elmendorf) reached on an error and moved to second on a sacrifice. Sade Moore (So., Angleton) beat out an infield single to put runners on the corners with one out. On the first pitch to Mary K Pederson (Jr., Houston) Moore took off for second and when the throw went to second Magaro stole home to give the Rattlers the lead.
The Rattlers added single runs each of the next three innings to put the game out of reach. Nikki Flores (So., Friendswood) singled in a run in the fourth, Moore scored on a ground out in the fifth and Barnes smacked her 12th homerun of the season in the sixth to complete the scoring.
With the sweep St. Mary’s improved to 36-14 overall and has won 10 games in a row. UTPB fell to 11-22. The teams will wrap up their four-game series on Sunday with a doubleheader starting at 10 a.m. at Rattler Field.