University of North Texas Athletics
Mean Green Splits Doubleheader With WKU Again
5/9/2004 12:00:00 AM | Softball
BOWLING GREEN, Ky -The North Texas softball team won its final regular season game with a 2-1 victory against Western Kentucky on Sunday afternoon at the WKU Softball Complex.
The Mean Green (21-55, 6-14) lost the first half of the doubleheader, 1-0. North Texas split the series with the Toppers, winning two of the four games. NT has won five of its last eight conference games.
Junior Mandy Hacker took the win for the Mean Green, spreading out six hits over seven innings and allowing one earned run. The Mean Green outhit the Toppers in the first game, 8-6.
The Mean Green pushed across runs in the first and third innings to take an early 2-0 lead in the final game of the series. NT used three-straight singles off WKU pitcher Allison Silver in the first. Sophomore Kelei Walker and junior Stephanie Cranmer singled to get on base, and freshman Susan Waters drove in Walker with her first RBI single. North Texas’ second run came off an RBI groundout to short by Hacker, which allowed Walker to score from third.
Waters, Walker and Cranmer each posted two hits in the win. Walker scored both of NT’s runs, Waters posted her ninth double of the year.
WKU cut into the North Texas lead in the bottom of the third after an RBI sacrifice fly from Bailey Rolfs. The Toppers threatened in the bottom of the seventh when WKU put runners on the corners with one out, but Hacker got junior Shelly Floyd to pop out to second base to seal the win for the Mean Green.
Freshman pitcher Katy Maxey lost her 33rd game of the season despite allowing only seven hits and unearned run in the first game of the doubleheader.
WKU’s Adrienne Lathrop threw a complete-game shutout. She held North Texas to three hits in the game, while Lindsay Gatti drove in the Toppers only run with a bases-loaded RBI single in the third.
After issuing a walk to Maxey to leadoff the game, Lathrop went on to retire the next 12 straight, taking a no-hitter into the fifth before a single by Hacker. The Mean Green tacked a hit in both the sixth and seventh innings, but could not scratch across a run on Lathrop.
North Texas finished its regular season with a 21-55 overall record and won five of its six conference games in the last eight games. The Mean Green drew a No. 5 seed in the Sun Belt Conference tournament and will face the No. 4 seed, Western Kentucky, on Thursday, May 13 at 1:30 pm in Lafayette, Louisiana.
