February 25, 2006
The No. 8 Texas A&M softball team (10-4) rallied in the bottom of the seventh to beat the UNLV Rebels 5-3 in front of 366 fans Saturday at the Fenway Worth Field in Cathedral City.
?What a great feeling for our team to bounce back from such a discouraging day yesterday,? commented A&M head coach Jo Evans. ?It was great for our team to come back and fight hard and I couldn?â„¢t be more proud of our players.?
Senior Rocky Spencer hit a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the seventh scoring designated player Jamie Hinshaw and starting pitcher Amanda Scarborough. Hinshaw reached on a leadoff single and Scarborough walked.
It was the Aggies who scored first, posting a run in the bottom of the first. Sharonda McDonald reached on a slap-bunt to first and stole her 67th consecutive base. Hinshaw reached on a walk. McDonald and Hinshaw advanced to third and second on a wild pitch. McDonald tagged and scored on a foul sac fly to the left side of the field by Scarborough.
A&M struck again in the bottom of the third. With the bases loaded, Scarborough hit a sac fly to score a tagging McDonald and push the Aggies ahead, 2-0.
Two A&M errors in the top of the fourth allowed UNLV to bring two runners across.
The Rebels scored again in the top of the fifth. Leadoff batter Maggie Livreri singled and was moved to third by a sac bunt and a ground out. Caitlyn Paus singled down the leftfield line to bring Livreri home and take the lead 3-2.
Scarborough recorded the complete game victory, improving her record to 4-3. She allowed three runs, one earned, on five hits and struck out a season high 10 batters.
?I think Scarborough deserves a lot of credit,? Evans said. ?She didn?â„¢t get down when we didn?â„¢t make a couple routine plays. I saw her out there encouraging her teammates when they made an error and she just hung in there and threw outs. She and Patti Wunderlich called their own game and I thought they did a fantastic job of reading the hitters.?
A&M will No. 3 UCLA at 10:00 p.m. Saturday before battling Fullerton on Sunday at 11:00 a.m.
You can access live audio and stats for all the Aggies?â„¢ games by logging on to AggieAthletics.com.