SHERMAN, TX (02.23.10) – On opening night for the Comets softball team, UT Dallas and Austin College swapped momentum, lead changes and, ultimately, wins in a doubleheader played at Old Settlers Park on Tuesday.
UTD (1-1) sprung back from a 5-3 loss in Game 1 to rally past the Kangaroos (5-3), 8-5, in the nightcap of a twin bill featuring several Comet newcomers who made an immediate impact.
Mallory Meyers, a sophomore, was consistent on the mound in Game 2, and accounted for UTD's go-ahead runs at the plate in the 7th inning to squeeze past AC on its home field.
The Comets, who were just 5-31 last year, committed only two errors and challenged an AC squad that already had six games under its belt heading into Tuesday's action. Six UTD freshmen contributed throughout the evening, including a pair of Comet pitchers—Meyers and
Jeni Olbeter—who gave their team a fighting chance in each game.
Game 1: UTD 3, AC 5 (box score)
The Comets jumped out to an auspicious start in the 1st inning when Olbeter, in her college debut, struck out the first batter she faced—and when
Natalie Duran singled to begin the ballgame.
But UTD was forced to play catch-up throughout, erasing deficits of 1-0 and 3-2 before AC pulled away in the fifth inning. The Kangaroos' Carolyn Stone and Suzanne Beltran singled in the final two runs of the game in the fifth and sixth innings, respectively.
Freshman
Anna Knutson lifted UTD to a 2-1 lead when she ripped a two-RBI in the third, and
Adrienne Rathy, who was sidelined with a broken arm in 2009, knotted the score, 3-3, after she drove home Krista Holder in the fifth. AC shut out the Comets in the final two frames.
Olbeter (0-1) allowed five runs, just three of which were earned, while pitching all seven innings. She fanned four Kangaroo batters, walking three.
Game 2: UTD 8, AC 5 (box score)
UTD frittered away leads of 2-0 and 5-2, but used Meyers' splintering, two-RBI single to pull ahead for good in the 7th inning. Meyers was then plated on a wild pitch by AC hurler Samantha Matulis to spike the Comets' lead to 8-5.
On the mound, Meyers forced the Kangaroos into a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the 7th to put an exclamation mark on UTD's first win of the spring.
Meyers (1-0), who was 4 of 5 at the plate on Tuesday, bagged 7 strikeouts and allowed 3 earned runs on the rubber. She reached base five times during the course of both games.
Freshman catcher
Brooke Taft also cinched a breakthrough performance in Game 2. Her sac fly to deep left field awarded the Comets with an early 2-0 advantage, and she cracked a lead-off double to fuel their scoring binge in the beginning of the 7th inning.
Overall, five Comets had two or more hits throughout Tuesday's doubleheader—Meyers (4), Duran (4), Rathy (3),
Caysie Norum (3) and Knutson (2).
The Comets, who dropped 20 of their last 21 games to end the 2009 season, will travel to Irving, TX, for weekend doubleheaders against Rust College (MS) and Cornell College (IA). The games will be split between the days of Feb. 27 and 28.
