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Tulsa Softball Team Opens NCAA Regional Play on Friday
5/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 18, 2006
Fresno, California - The Tulsa women's softball team makes its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Championship this week, as the Golden Hurricane takes on 12th seed Stanford, in a 9:30 pm (Central Time) game on Friday.
The double-elimination regional will be played, Friday-Sunday, May 19-21, at the Fresno Regional in Fresno, California at Bulldog Stadium. Cal State Fullerton and Fresno State plays the 7:00 pm (CT) game on Friday.
On Saturday, the two winners will meet at 2:00 pm (CT), while loser bracket games will be played at 4:30 pm (CT) and 7:00 pm (CT). The Regional Championship game will be played at 3:00 pm (CT) on Sunday with a game, if necessary, to be played at 5:30 pm (CT).
Tulsa received Conference USA's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by winning the league tournament last Saturday with a 3-0 victory over Marshall. The Hurricane has an overall 34-22 record, while the Cardinal women have posted a 38-15 mark.
Stanford is one of seven of eight teams from the PAC 10 to make the NCAA Tournament. The Cardinal is ranked ninth nationally in the most recent ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 poll and is coming off of two wins against the NCAA Tournament's No. 1 seed UCLA, 3-2 and 5-4, last weekend.
In last year's NCAA Tournament, Stanford posted a 3-2 record while losing in the Super Regional to Tennessee.
Stanford has five players hitting over .300 on the season, including team-leader and senior outfielder Catalina Morris with a .376 batting average. Outfielder Jackie Rinehart and infielder Maddy Coon are next with .342 and .338 batting averages,
As a team, the Cardinal batters are hitting for a .297 average with 415 total hits and 99 for extra bases. Stanford has a .417 slugging percentage, .366 on-base percentage and has stolen 38 bases.
Cardinal pitchers have thrown 22 complete games and 16 shutouts, as sophomore Becky McCullough leads the team with a 2.03 earned run average, while senior Laura Severson has a perfect 8-0 record and 2.20 ERA. Freshman Missy Penna has posted a team-best 20-9 record.
"This is definitely a tough match-up for us. Stanford has been a quality program for several years. We'll have all that we can handle. We'll just have to go out and play our game and see what happens," said Tulsa Head Coach John Bargfeldt.
The tournament is a homecoming for two Hurricane freshmen, Brooke Smart from Fresno, and Jessica Barr from Placentia, Calif. Both Smart and Barr were named to the C-USA all-Freshman Team. Right fielder Barr has a team-leading .302 batting average while starting 41 games, and left fielder Smart has a .266 batting average with 46 hits and a team-leading 10 home runs.
A quartet of Oklahoma players lead the Hurricane -- first baseman Katie Torres (Oklahoma City), shortstop Kelli McGlasson (Oklahoma City), designated player Sara Dyer (Sand Springs) and center fielder Julie Shafer (Broken Arrow). The quartet has combined for a .285 batting average and has 32 of Tulsa's 69 doubles, four of Tulsa's five triples and 21 out of Tulsa's 38 home runs this season.
Tulsa's top two pitchers, Maren Genow and Julie Fennell, have combined to pitch 306.1 of 384 innings and have posted a combined 28-17 record with 30 complete games and five shutouts. Genow holds the school record with 63 career wins, while Fennell's 32 wins ranks fourth on the school's all-time wins list. Genow has tied the school record for shutouts with 23, while Fennell is ranked fourth on the career list with 11 shutouts.
Fennell was named the MVP of the Conference USA Tournament after pitching 16.1 innings, posting two wins, striking out 17 batters and allowing just one run.
Host Fresno State (35-17), an at-large participant from the Western Athletic Conference, and Cal State Fullerton (36-22) are pitted against each other in the other first round game. Between the three California teams in the Fresno Bracket, there have been a total of 20 World Series appearances and two NCAA titles, with the championship crowns coming from Cal State Fullerton in 1986 and Fresno State in 1998.
The Hurricane is no stranger to Fresno State's Bulldog Stadium. As Tulsa's five-member senior class has played against Fresno Sate in Fresno seven times, including grabbing two wins against the 14th-ranked Bulldogs in the 2004 season.
