March 31, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

IRVING, Texas - No. 11 Houston (31-4, 9-0) swept the weekly Conference USA Player of the Week awards for the second time this season and improved to 9-0 in C-USA play after sweeping Memphis last weekend. The Cougars earned their third straight conference series sweep and the 9-0 start in C-USA is a program best record to start conference play.

With five more wins last week, the Knights extended their winning steak to 12 games, while posting victories in 14 of their last 15 contests. UCF has recorded wins over East Carolina, No. 14 Baylor, UAB, Jacksonville, Tulsa, Florida International, Florida Atlantic and Marshall. UCF's series sweep over Marshall last weekend marked only the third time that UCF has swept a C-USA opponent since joining the league for the 2006 season. It also was the club's first back-to-back C-USA sweeps.

RECENT RESULTS
Sunday, March 30
*UCF 7, Marshall 1 (8 inn.)
*East Carolina 5, Tulsa 3
*No. 11 Houston 3, Memphis 0
*Southern Miss 7, UAB 1

Saturday, March 29
*UCF 2, Marshall 1
*UCF 5, Marshall 3
*Tulsa 5, East Carolina 2
*Tulsa 8, East Carolina 4
*No. 11 Houston 9, Memphis 0 (5 inn.)
*No. 11 Houston 7, Memphis 1
*Southern Miss 8, UAB 1
*UAB 3, Southern Miss 0

Thursday, March 27
Nevada 4, UTEP 2
UTEP 8, Nevada 1

Wednesday, March 26
# Oklahoma State 4, Tulsa 2
Southern Miss 5, Northwestern State 0
Southern Miss 8, Northwetern State 0 (5 inn.)
UCF 9, Florida International 5
No. 10 Arizona 9, Marshall 1 (5 inn.)
No. 10 Arizona 11, Marshall 5
# Tulsa 2, Arkansas 1

* - C-USA Game
# - Border War, Fayetteville, AR

ON THE WEB
For the latest Conference USA softball game recaps, scores, standings, stats and notes, please log on to the league's official website: www.ConferenceUSA.com

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK (3/31)
HITTER OF THE WEEK
LAURIE WAGNER - Houston
RF, Jr., Houston, Texas (Stratford)
Wagner hit two home runs in the Cougars 3-0 game three win over Memphis. Her first home run was a two-run blast in the first inning and her second came in the sixth inning. They were the only hits for Houston in the game. Wagner helped the Cougars secure their third-straight series sweep in conference play. The Houston native hit .714 (5-for-7) over the weekend and has a team best .433 batting average. The junior also hit a home run in Houston's second game of the series en route to a 7-1 win. The three home runs give her nine for the season, which is tied for the most on the team this season. Wagner needs just one more home run to break into the school's top five for most home runs in a season. The weekly honor is the second of Wagner's career and her first in 2008. .

PITCHER OF THE WEEK
ANGEL SHAMBLIN - Houston
P, Sr., Davie, Fla. (Hollywood Christian)
Shamblin pitched the second perfect game of her career and the second in program history in the game one of the three-game series against Memphis. The performance was the first perfect game this season in C-USA. She tallied nine strikeouts in the win. Shamblin was in the circle again on Sunday and dominated the Tigers, racking up 15 strikeouts en route to her 18th win this season. It was the second time she has struck out 15 hitters in a game this season and the total is the second most in program history. In total on the weekend, she allowed just four hits and no runs, including 24 strikeouts. The senior sports a 0.59 ERA this season to pace the Cougars. This is Shamblin's 13th career weekly honor, her fourth in 2008 (Feb. 18, Mar. 10, Mar. 17).

DIAMOND STARS
Each week, teams have individuals who shine both at the plate and in the circle and this is where those efforts will be highlighted throughout the season.

NOTABLE PERFORMANCES AT THE PLATE (3/25-3/30)
VANESSA MORENO - East Carolina
Moreno hit 4-for-7 (.571) with two runs scored, a home run and a walk against Tulsa. She had a career- and season-high four RBI in the series finale on Sunday.

Rachel Folden - Marshall
Folden, an All-American, had three home runs and hit .368 (7-for-19) last week. She also added two doubles and has 18 on the season.

MEGAN HILL - Southern Miss
Hill finished the week batting .471 (8-for-17) with two home runs and one triple. She had seven RBI and was 1-of-2 in stolen bases on the week, while scoring four times.

CHRISTIAN TIMMONS - Tulsa
Timmons led her team with a .471 (8-for-17) batting average, including a .529 slugging percentage and a .500 on-base percentage.

ABBY McCLAIN - UCF
McClain was 5-for-7 (.714) in UCF's three-game sweep of Marshall. She posted an .857 slugging percentage and a .778 on-base percentage. She also notched a double with three RBI and scored three times.

NOTABLE PERFORMANCES IN THE CIRCLE (3/25-3/30)
BROOKE SWANN - East Carolina
Swann recorded a 1-1 record in the three-game series with Tulsa. She notched seven strikeouts in 10 innings and threw her team-leading 15th complete game.

SAMANTHA DAVIS - Southern Miss
Davis posted three wins last week and struck out 13 hitters. She gave up 11 hits in 20 innings of work and opponents hit just .159 against her.

JORDAN KINARD - Tulsa
Kinard went 2-0 last week and struck out seven hitters in 9.2 innings of work. In TU's 2-1 victory over Arkansas, Kinard allowed just one hit.

ALLISON KIME - UCF
Kime combined for 38 strikeouts in four appearance last week, fanning at least 10 batters in all three of her starts. Kime tossed her fourth career no-hitter against FAU on Tuesday and registered a 0.84 ERA on the week. Kime has won 10 games in a row and her team has won 12 consecutive contests.

C-USA NOTEBOOK
EAST CAROLINA
DRIVING IT IN
Avoiding The Sweep East Carolina pulled out a 5-3 victory on Sunday to avoid a series sweep by Tulsa. The last time the Pirates were swept in a conference series was in 2006 by UAB. In its seven-plus seasons in Conference USA, ECU has only been swept eight times.

FREE FROM ERROR
After committing eight errors in its first two conference series at UCF and against Southern Miss, the Pirates turned in an error-free series at Tulsa. East Carolina leads Conference USA in fielding percentage and is tied with Houston, committing just 19 errors on the season. The Pirates are currently tied with Missouri State for third in the nation in fielding percentage (.984).

HOUSTON
BRING OUT THE BROOMS
The Cougars earned their third straight conference series sweep when they defeated Memphis at home last weekend. The 9-0 start in C-USA is a program best record to start conference play. Houston recorded four series sweeps in 2007.

SHAMBLIN IS PERFECT
Senior pitcher Angel Shamblin pitched a perfect game in the Cougars 9-0 defeat of Memphis in the first game of the three-game series. It was the second perfect game of her career and the second in program history and the first in C-USA this season. She also notched a season-tying high of 15 strikeouts in the finale with the Tigers. Shamblin is alone in fourth on the all-time C-USA victories list, (76) and she is in fourth on the all-time strikeouts list. (723).

MARSHALL
FOLDEN POWERS HERD
Senior slugger Rachel Folden continues to re-write the Marshall record books after every performance. Last week, Folden belted three home runs increasing her career total to 48. She now has a 21 more home runs than the second place player on the MU list. She leads the league with 18 doubles and is alone in third on the C-USA all-time home run list with 39 home runs in her C-USA playing career.

RODRIGUEZ HITS FOR DOUBLES
Marshall senior Samantha Rodriguez went 4-for-11 (.364) against UCF last week and notched two doubles. She now has five doubles on the season and seven home runs. In addition, Rodriguez has knocked in 25 runs and scored 19 times this season.

MEMPHIS
McCLINTON TAMES COUGARS
Freshman Rayna McClinton threw a two-hitter against Houston on Sunday. The Columbia, S.C., native pitched her second complete game in only her fifth start of the season. Player of the Week Laurie Wagner was the only player to record a hit off McClinton, with both being home runs.

IN-STATE SERIES
Memphis will play its first in-state match-up of the season at Tennessee State on Wednesday. Last year the Tigers went 11-3 against teams from the state of Tennessee with one of the three losses a 4-1 defeat to then-No. 1 Tennessee in Knoxville.

SOUTHERN MISS
GOLDEN EAGLES GO 4-1
Southern Miss went 4-1 last week, including a three-game winning streak. The Golden Eagles swept Northwestern State in a mid-week doubleheader and won the C-USA series with UAB, 2-1. USM's pitching staff finished with a 1.06 ERA and struck out 21 batters, while opponents hit just .181.

INSIDE THE PARK HOME RUN
Kristin Chaney recorded her first career home run when she hit an inside the park home run against UAB in game one. It was the first inside the park home run for the Golden Eagles since Ashley Brenan did it against UCF on Mar. 25, 2005.

TULSA
TIMMONS LEADS TULSA
Christian Timmons led her team hitting .471 (8-for-17), including a .529 slugging percentage and a .500 on-base percentage. Her eight hits were a team high and included a double. She went 3-for-4 against Arkansas while recording a least one hit in all five of TU's games last week.

KINARD ONE-HITS RAZORBACKS
Tulsa pitcher Jordan Kinard allowed just one hit against Arkansas to help Tulsa to a 2-1 comeback victory in their second game at the Border War. Kinard did not allow a runner past second base until the 7th inning in her start against East Carolina and finished the start with five Ks.

UAB
HARRIS TOSSES ONE-HITTER
Junior pitcher Kayla Harris threw the second one-hitter of her career in the Blazers' second game of their series with Southern Miss. She faced 21 batters before allowing a hit in the sixth inning, which was an infield single. Harris earned the victory, the eighth of the season, and matched her win total to from 2007. She recorded her seventh-career shutout and struck out three. Harris' other one-hit start came against Eastern Michigan last season.

ROGERS BREAKS HOME RUN DROUGHT
Andrea Rogers ended the longest home run drought of her career in the seventh inning of the Blazers' 3-0 victory against Southern Miss. The homer to deep left center was the first of the season for UAB's all-time home run leader. The junior went 98 at bats without a homer before Saturday's solo shot. Her last homer was a walk-off grand slam against Chattanooga on May 3. Rogers now has 24 for her career and leads Holly Krzan by four on the all-time Blazers' homer chart.

UCF
TWELVE IN A ROW
With five more wins last week, the Knights extended their winning steak to 12 games, while posting victories in 14 of their last 15 contests. UCF has recorded wins over East Carolina, No. 14 Baylor, UAB, Jacksonville, Tulsa, Florida International, Florida Atlantic and Marshall.

THIRD SWEEP
UCF's series sweep over Marshall last weekend marked only the third time that UCF has swept a C-USA opponent since joining the league for the 2006 season. It also was the club's first back-to-back C-USA sweeps as they took out Tulsa March 21-22. UCF has won their last seven C-USA games and is 9-3 so far in the league. Last year, the Knights swept UTEP at home to clinch their first C-USA Championship berth and first series sweep.

UTEP
A BIG WIN
UTEP's 2-1 win over Texas Tech on Tuesday marked the Miners' first-ever win over a Big 12 school. UTEP had seven other tries, all that ended in losses. UTEP took on Texas Tech three other times, all in the 2004 inaugural season and all were losses. The following campaign, UTEP played Texas and Oklahoma, both of which were ranked in the top-10.

TOWNSEND'S BIG 12
Stacie Townsend knocked two home runs over the week to total seven during the 2008 season and 12forher career. Townsend's long ball against Nevada was good for two runs, a feat she accomplished twice before. The Miners are 5-2 when Townsend blasts a home run and 3-0 when there is a runner on base.

AROUND THE HORN
EAST CAROLINA
East Carolina (24-15, 5-4) avoided a series sweep by Tulsa, defeating the Golden Hurricane 5-3 on Sunday at the Hardesty Softball Complex. ECU moved ahead 3-0 in the top of the first, before Tulsa tied the game in the bottom of the second. In the top of the third, the Pirates earned the winning run off of a RBI-single by Vanessa Moreno that scored Charnia Sumner. Sumner had singled to lead off the inning. Tiffany Shaw doubled to begin the top of the fourth, leading to East Carolina's fifth run. Brooke Swann threw her 15th complete game of the season in the win, improving her record to 14-11. The junior gave up just three earned runs while scattering six hits and striking out six, her highest strikeout total since she fanned seven against Maine on Feb. 17. Moreno tallied a season-high four RBI for the Pirates, hitting 3-for-4 on the contest. The RBI mark ties her single game career-high. ECU finishes its 10-game road swing on Wednesday in Chapel Hill as it takes on No. 19 North Carolina in a doubleheader.

HOUSTON
No. 11 Houston (31-4, 9-0) swept the weekly Conference USA Player of the Week awards for the second time this season. Junior Laurie Wagner was named the Hitter of the Week and senior Angel Shamblin was named the Pitcher of the Week. Shamblin pitched a perfect game in the Cougars game one win over the Tigers. It was the second of her career and the second in program history. It was also the first perfect game in C-USA this season. Shamblin also pitched the final game of the series recording 15 strikeouts, tying her season-best for strikeouts. During the weekend, she allowed just four hits, no runs and 24 strikeouts. Wagner hit two home runs in the Houston's game three win over Memphis. The first was a two-run home run in the first inning with her second coming in the sixth inning. She helped the Cougars earn their third-straight C-USA series sweep. Wagner hit .714 (5-for-7) over the weekend and she paces the team this season with a .433 batting average. The Cougars will travel to Orlando, Fla., for a three-game series against UCF on April 5-6.

MARSHALL
Despite a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first inning by senior All-American catcher Rachel Folden, Marshall lost 7-1 in the eighth inning to visiting UCF in the series finale, Sunday afternoon at Dot Hicks Field. The Herd (12-23, 4-7 C-USA) and Knights were tied at one for six-straight innings before the Knights scored six runs in the eighth inning. The Baldwin Park, Calif., native, led off the game with her seventh blast of the season. It marks the third time this season she has started the game for the Herd with a home run. She now has 48 home runs and continues to extend her all-time mark. Samantha Rodriguez went 4-for-11 (.364) against UCF last week and notched two doubles. She now has five doubles on the season and seven home runs. In addition, Rodriguez has knocked in 25 runs and scored 19 times this season. The Herd will now take a mid-week break from conference action to travel to Columbus, Ohio for a non-conference doubleheader against Ohio State.

MEMPHIS
Freshman Rayna McClinton threw a two-hitter against No. 11 Houston on Sunday, but it was not enough as the Tigers (16-17, 0-8) fell to the Cougars, 3-0 . The Columbia, S.C., native pitched her second complete game in only her fifth start of the season. Player of the Week Laurie Wagner was the only player to record a hit off McClinton with both being home runs. Pitching dominated the Tigers as they dropped both games of a doubleheader to UH Saturday. The Tigers lost 9-0 and 7-1 to open the three-game conference series. The 9-0 loss was a perfect game for Houston. The game marked the second time Memphis has been no-hit and the first perfect game against the Tigers. The Tigers will next play at Tennessee State in a doubleheader in Nashville on Wednesday, April 2 beginning at 2 p.m. Memphis will then return home to host a three-game conference series with UTEP on Saturday and Sunday, April 5-6.

SOUTHERN MISS
Southern Miss (18-19, 4-8) scored runs in four-consecutive innings in defeating UAB, 7-1, Sunday to win the C-USA series. Samantha Davis recorded her ninth win of the season as she worked seven innings, giving up six hits and allowed only one run. USM's pitching staff finished with a 1.06 ERA and struck out 21 batters, while opponents hit just .181. Kristin Chaney recorded her first career home run when she hit an inside the park home run against UAB in game one. It was the first inside the park home run for the Golden Eagles since Ashley Brenan did it against UCF on Mar. 25, 2005. Megan Hill finished the week batting .471 (8-for-17) with two home runs and one triple. She had seven RBI and was 1-of-2 in stolen bases on the week, while scoring four times. Southern Miss hits the road for a single game against Southeastern Louisiana, April 2. Game time is set for 6 p.m.

TULSA
Tulsa (20-16, 7-5) could not take advantage of early opportunities in Sunday's series finale against East Carolina and fell 5-3. The Golden Hurricane stranded four base runners in the first three innings, with two being in scoring position. It was the first home loss for the Golden Hurricane this season, snapping an 11-game winning streak at home for TU as the team won two-of-three games in the series with the Blazers. Christian Timmons led her team hitting .471 (8-for-17), including a .529 slugging percentage and a .500 on-base percentage. Her eight hits were a team high and included a double. She went 3-for-4 against Arkansas while recording a least one hit in all five of TU's games last week. TU will travel to Central Arkansas on Wednesday for a non-conference doubleheader, before traveling to UAB on Friday for a three-game C-USA series in Birmingham.

UAB
UAB (18-21, 5-7) let an early lead slip away Sunday against Southern Miss, eventually falling 7-1 and losing the series. Andrea Rogers and Leigh Walker each had two hits for the Blazers. Southern Miss won its eighth series in nine attempts with the Blazers and hold the all-time series lead 9-21 after the weekend series. UAB travels to Chattanooga Wednesday for a doubleheader beginning at 4 p.m. Junior pitcher Kayla Harris threw the second one-hitter of her career in the Blazers' second game of their series. She faced 21 batters before allowing a hit in the sixth inning, which was an infield single. Harris earned the victory, her eighth of the season, and matched her win total to from 2007. She recorded her seventh-career shutout and struck out three. The Blazers will return home for a single game with Mississippi Valley State at 6 p.m. Thursday. UAB hosts Tulsa in a three-game Conference USA series beginning Saturday.

UCF
Abby McClain posted three hits and drove in two runs to lead UCF (30-14, 9-3) to its second-consecutive Conference USA series sweep and third in program history with a 7-1 win over Marshall in eight innings Sunday afternoon at Dot Hicks Field. The Knights scored six runs in the eighth inning to get the victory, with the score remaining deadlocked at 1-1 through the first seven innings. Breanne Javier and Tiffany Lane added two hits for the Black and Gold, with Lane registering two RBI. Allison Kime earned the win in the circle for UCF, allowing only one run on six hits, while fanning 10 batters. The win is the 10th-straight for the senior and her 17th of the season. With five more wins last week, the Knights extended their winning steak to 12 games, while posting victories in 14 of their last 15 contests. The Knights continue play on the road Wednesday, traveling to Jacksonville for a match-up with North Florida.

UTEP
Stacie Townsend knocked two home runs over the week to total seven during the 2008 season and 12 for her career. Her efforts helped UTEP (23-14, 4-5) to a 2-2 week with series splits over Nevada and Texas Tech. Townsend's long ball against Nevada was good for two runs, a feat she accomplished twice before. The Miners are 5-2 when Townsend's blasts a home run and 3-0 when there is a runner on base. UTEP also has blasted 35 home runs on the season. Camilla Carrera was the Miners' big hitter, going 3-for-5 (.600) with two runs, two doubles and one RBI against the Wolfpack. Jennifer Davis also contributed two doubles to put the Miners at 71 for the season. Davis batted .500 with two runs on three hits and a team-high two RBI for the day. The Miners return to conference action in a three game road series at Memphis on April 5. They return home to face UCF on April 12 and 13.