Texas Tech University Athletics
Tech Softball Splits Twinbill With UTSA
February 18, 2001 | Softball
Feb. 18, 2001
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The Texas Tech softball team split a doubleheader with UT-San Antonio Sunday afternoon, winning 2-1 before suffering a 3-2 setback in extra inning in game two.
The Red Raiders got a run in each of the first two innings of the first game, and senior hurler Amanda Renfro made it stand up for a 2-1 victory in the opening game of the doubleheader.
Rebecca Eimen singled with one out and Evan Harshman put two on with one out when she reached on a fielder's choice. Carmen Grindell then singled to right center, plating Eimen with the game's first run.
Freshman Britney Stolle put Tech ahead 2-0 with a solo home run in the second, her first of the season.
Renfro cruised along until Monica Briggs led off the seventh with a solo home run. But the senior from Houston, Texas, got Jenn Aman to pop out and struck out the final two batters of the contest, her ninth and 10th punchouts, to preserve the victory and run her season record and the team's mark to 5-3 on the season.
Renfro struck out 10 and allowed just three hits in the contest. Paige Whitley (2-1) took the loss, giving up six hits and two runs with seven strikeouts.
UT-San Antonio got started early in the second game, with a two-out single by Michelle McElyea followed by a two-run homer from Briggs, her second of the day and fourth of the season.
Tech was unable to get to UTSA starter Angela Graham until the sixth, when Tracy Cartier led off with a bunt single. Rebecca Eimen sacrificed her to second, and Cartier moved to third on a deep fly ball to center by pinch-hitter Jana Baker.
Shauna Briggs then delivered a big two-out hit, a solid single to right center to score Cartier and cut the deficit to 2-1.
Pinch-hitter Andrea Joachims walked, necessitating a pitching change. UTSA brought in Denise Briggs, but she walked Ashley Ready to load the bases, and eventually walked Emily Bone, forcing in a run and knotting the contest at two apiece.
The Roadrunners reentered Graham, who got the final out of the sixth, but not before the Red Raiders erased the two-run deficit.
Tech got a leadoff single from Tiffany Harrington in the seventh, and Cartier followed with a bunt single to put two on with no one out. Graham got two strikeouts before Briggs ripped a ball off the third baseman. As the ball ricocheted into foul territory down the left field line, Harrington came around with what appeared to be the go-ahead run.
But after some discussion, it was determined that Briggs had not been reentered into the game after Amanda Douglas came in to run for her in the sixth, and the inning ended with no runs for the Red Raiders.
The tiebreaker rule went into effect in the eighth, and Ashley Ready's one-out single to center moved the runner to third, and Ready went to second on a high throw to the plate. But Graham bared down and got a popout and a strikeout to end the threat.
Alicia Pierucci moved Ashley Oswald to third to start the bottom of the eighth, and after a pair of intentional walks to load the bases, Jennifer Davis singled to right to drive home Oswald with the winning run and a 3-2 UTSA victory.
Graham got the win for the Roadrunners, striking out 12. Renfro (5-4) suffered the loss, striking out nine and allowing just seven hits.
Tech travels to the Morning-News Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., next weekend, taking on Notre Dame in a doubleheader on Friday at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. at Lady Razorback Field on the University of Arkansas campus.
