SAN ANTONIO – The Tarleton TexAnn softball team will continue the opening part of its 2010 schedule with a three-day tournament in San Antonio. The TexAnns will play five contests this weekend at the St. Mary's Classic to be held at the San Antonio ISD Sports Complex.
Tarleton will face Cameron at 11 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 5 before playing Midwestern State at 5 p.m. on Friday. The TexAnns will then play two games on Saturday, Feb. 6 – East Central at 1 p.m. and Texas-Permian Basin at 7 p.m. The final game of the tournament will be against Texas A&M-International at noon on Sunday, Feb. 7.
All of the games are important regional contests that will help the TexAnns in the regional rankings later in the year, and head coach Julie Mata said her team will be looking to bounce back from the season opening losses at Southeastern Oklahoma on Tuesday.”
"It's going to be important for us to get some chemistry together out on the field this weekend,” Mata said. “It was clear on Tuesday at Southeastern that we have the ability to do some great things as a team, but that we have to do it for a whole game, not just 6 and 2/3rd's innings. It takes more fight and determination than what we showed out there at times on Tuesday, and I do think our girls will respond well.”
The TexAnns have battled injuries during the offseason and at the beginning of the spring semester that have caused Mata to juggle the lineup, but the head coach believes the TexAnns can still be successful as they work to overcome the setbacks.
“Injuries and some illnesses have put us a little out of sync, but in this game that happens and we'll have to adjust,” Mata said. “I'm proud of our team and I think we'll show up and play well against the tough competition we'll see every time we step on the field this weekend. I've told the players that in regard to our opponents, our season starts at a high difficulty level and only gets tougher as we go, so they know they've got to amp it up if they want to succeed.”
The TexAnns are 0-2 heading into the tournament and are led by Tami Sutton and Julie Norris with a .429 batting average apiece. Each player had three hits in seven at-bats with one run scored on Tuesday. Tarleton is hitting .255 as a team.
Norris (0-1) leads the pitching staff with a 0.00 earned run average. She pitched 6.2 innings and allowed just seven hits while striking out four. An untimely error cost the TexAnns two runs in the season opener they lost 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh. Katie Smith also pitched well for Tarleton in the second game of the season, but Tarleton lost 5-1. She allowed eight hits and four earned runs while walking three and striking out four. The opponents hit .259 off Tarleton while the TexAnn staff has a combined ERA of 2.84.
This weekend's tournament will be the first action for CU, MSU, ECU and UTPB. TAMIU split a doubleheader on Monday at Texas A&M-Kingsville.
