Weekend Recap – 4/6/09

The baseball Bears failed to win the series at home against Texas State. But they were able to overcome a 10th-inning 12-11 loss on Saturday and win Sunday’s finale with good pitching from Bobby Pritchett and good hitting all around.



The Bears had as many or more hits in all three games, but Texas State found ways to win the first two. Saturdays’ game featured the long ball, 5 homers from each team. Even with a second day of strong winds, Jonathan Yerby’s solo homer was the only one of the day. Catcher Eric Tennyson was 4-for-4 on Sunday. The only Bear to not record a hit was Dillon Smith, but he reached three times via walks.



Pritchett was good – not great – in throwing 137 pitches and allowing just four runs in 8 innings. He and Friday‘s starter Jeremy Cloud combined to throw 262 pitches.

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The women’s sports were either dominant or dominated.



The tennis team was swept 7-0 at Lamar and falls to 0-8 in SLC play.



The softball Bears swept Northwestern State at home. And for their efforts, the weekly SLC awards were swept by UCA players. Sarah Garcia was named the SLC Hitter of the Week and junior Holli Hill the Southland Pitcher of the Week.



The Bears outscored Northwestern State 16-4 and are now 19-20 and 10-8 in conference. That’s good enough for 6th in the standings. It can’t be said enough how impressive this turnaround has been in just one offseason.

Softball falls to SELA in game one

Head baseball coach Doug Clark said earlier this week that to win you need base runners. Well, the same obviously holds true in softball, and the Bears struggled to get any of those necessary runners and fell to Southeastern Louisiana 8-3.



SELA, on the other hand, had more than enough base runners, and their pitcher, Rachel Ray (seriously), did a very good job of keeping UCA’s batters walking directly back to the dugout most of the game.



Ray pitched 5-1/3 innings of hitless ball before the Bears finally got things started offensively.



UCA, already down 8-0 in the bottom of the fifth, got on the board when the bats started connecting solidly to Ray’s pitches for three doubles and a homer by right-fielder Hannah Ambrose to cut the lead to five. But the comeback stalled there with a runner on second.



To Ray’s credit, she stayed on the mound and got out of the inning with a strikeout.



Not only were the bats struggling for most of the game, UCA’s defense cost them dearly a couple times as well. There were two errors made in the Bears outfield. And both came just before bases-clearing doubles in those two big innings for SELA.



The Lions pounded the ball for 16 hits and scored in just two innings, but both netted four runs, enough for the win.



Lindsey Harris picked up the loss for UCA.



SELA (12-4, 3-1 SLC) came into the game after taking two of three from Nicholls State. This was UCA’s first conference matchup of the season and the first home games.



Writer’s note: I forgot how much those players talk on the softball field/in the dugouts. Listening to some of that stuff is entertaining enough, but the game is on such a small field that everything moves pretty quickly. The home season just started today, so you have plenty of time to get out there and watch some games.