April 20, 2009
San Antonio – St. Mary’s University’s Arlynda Flores smashed two more homeruns over the weekend catapulting her to the head of the pack of the competitive battle for bragging rights to the NCAA Division II homeruns for 2009 season.
Flores’ big hits helped St. Mary’s University in a 6-4 win in game one and a split of a doubleheader against Lincoln University in Heartland Conference softball action Saturday at Blue Tiger Field. She hit two, two-run homeruns in the game, the second of which gave the Rattlers a 5-2 lead in the fifth inning. She went a perfect 3-for-3 with four RBI in the game. On the mound, she picked up her 12th win of the season.
Flores now has 23 homeruns this season, one more than Sandy James of Angelo State University, who started the day leading the nation, and three more than both Jessika Anastos of the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and Marti Littlefield of Valdosta State University.
Flores has at least seven more games to try to break the NCAA Division II national record of most homeruns in a single season set by Carmen Paez of Florida Gulf Coast in 2007 with 28 homeruns.
She is also just one homerun away from tying the St. Mary’s school record. The current record was set by Elizabeth Beyer in 2005 with 24 homeruns.
Flores a junior from Uvalde is quite the student-athlete. She’s scoring big off the field as well as an Honor Roll student with a 3.67 GPA majoring in exercise and sports science.
With this weekend’s split the Rattlers are 28-28 overall and 19-5 in Heartland Conference. St. Edward’s University continues to hold a slim one-game lead over the Rattlers in the Heartland Conference standings.
Flores and the rest of the Rattler’s team will return to action on Friday, April 24 at home in a double header when they take on cross town rivals Incarnate Word. The first game begins at 4 p.m.
With a nearly 60 percent graduation rate of all students (including minorities) that is just one of the reasons why St. Mary’s University is ranked fourth in the West Region for quality and value in the “Great Schools, Great Prices” category of the U.S. News & World Report’s 2009 edition of “America’s Best Colleges.”