February 15, 2004
The No. 18 Texas A&M softball team fell to 5-3 on the season after dropping Sunday's game to No. 23 Fresno St. 2-0 in their last game of the Fiesta Bowl Classic. The Aggies went 2-3 on the weekend as they posted wins over No. 20 Oregon and New Mexico. Their losses all came against ranked opponents beginning with No. 2 Arizona on Friday, No. 5 Washington on Saturday and Sunday's 2-0 loss to Fresno State. FSU's Jamie Southern faced the minimum number of Aggie batters as she threw the third perfect game of her career while striking out 15.
A&M's Christina Smith got the Sunday start and went toe-to-toe with FSU's Jamie Southern for four innings. Neither pitcher allowed a run to cross until Fresno State's Christina Clark broke through for the Bulldogs and put them on the board with a home run to left field. Senior right-hander Jessica Kapchinski entered in relief for Smith, after FSU added two more base runners, and allowed one more run in the inning when catcher Nichole Willis hit a single to right scoring pinch runner Daisy Gaynor from second.
Smith pitched 4 1/3 innings and allowed two runs on five hits while walking two and striking out four.. In relief Kapchinski struck out five Bulldog batters and did not allow a run while recording five strikeouts through 1 2/3 innings.
"I saw some really good things out of our young players," A&M Head Coach Jo Evans said. "I thought our freshman played really well for the most part. Joy Davis, Sharonda McDonald, Laura Durham and Christina Smith played well especially considering how young they are. Christina got our there on the mound and did a nice job. I think it is a situation where we continue to learn. We had a great win against Oregon. I thought Jill Weynand had a good tournament and threw the ball well. She had a nice win against New Mexico and got her two wins. (Lindsay) Wilhelmson threw great against Washington and we certainly had a chance to beat them. I thought we competed really well. We struggled against Fresno and their all-american pitcher but with that aside I thought it was a great weekend for us. I leave here feeling really good about our young players. We are excited about this upcoming week. We play Houston in a doubleheader on Wednesday and we know we are going to have to play really well against them because they hit the ball well. Then we go in to the weekend and host our first tournament of the year. We know that we will be the team to beat and we just need to get out there and play hard. I hope we take some confidence from this tournament because we battled hard and gave ourselves the chance to win."
A&M returns home to take on Houston in a doubleheader on Wednesday beginning at 3 p.m. at the Aggie Softball Field. The first 150 fans will receive an Aggie softball schedule t-shirt. Live audio and stats will be available for the first game on AggieAthetics.com. Live stats only will be available for the second game.
For Wednesday's games fans can park for free in the Olsen Field parking lot (PA 63) located directly across the street from the Aggie Softball Field.