They've had games canceled due to snow, to rain and to it being too cold. That was nothing compared to what Tulsa experienced last night at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium. Hawaii sweeps Tulsa
to solidify place atop WACBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.comThis time, the Golden Hurricane suffered their first power outage of the year in the opener of the Western Athletic Conference doubleheader, falling to Hawaii 8-0 in five innings, and then short-circuiting in the nightcap in a 4-3 loss in 10 innings.
A wild pitch by Maren Genow with no outs in the bottom of the 10th allowed Stacey Porter to score the winning run. Hawaii is 3-1 in extra-inning games. Tulsa fell to 3-6 in overtime.
Although Melissa Coogan (21-9) picked up both victories in complete-game efforts, she was not happy with how the seventh inning went. The sophomore right-hander was one out away from closing out the game when Brandi McGuire nailed a 2-1 pitch over the left-field fence for her first hit of the twinbill to tie the game at 3.
"I was pretty mad after that," said Coogan, who became the WAC's first 20-game winner of the season with her three-hit shutout in the opener. "It was my fault. I should have shook Denise (catcher Dahlberg) off. I didn't want to throw that pitch, but I did and it was right down the middle.
"We should have been out of this game an hour ago. But I thought we'd win anyway because of the way we were playing. We had a lot of intensity."
After 2 hours and 6 minutes, it came down to one pitch. Porter opened the top of the 10th with a double to the center-field wall, then took third on Kate Judd's single.
Genow had a 1-0 count on Trisha Ramos when her next pitch got away from catcher Stephanie Sliepen, allowing Porter to end the marathon.
"I had a feeling something would happen," said Porter, going 3-for-3 in Game 2. "The people coming up behind me in the lineup had been hitting and I had a feeling one of them would put it somewhere where I could score.
"I didn't expect the wild pitch. It was an exciting way to end the game."
The Wahine blasted a combined 27 hits, including 14 in the 8-run rule-shortened first game. Hawaii (28-15) gained more breathing room at the top of the WAC standings, running its record to 8-2. Tulsa fell to 29-20 and 4-4.
Having one of the biggest days of her career was junior April Crowell. The Roosevelt High School product had the game-ending RBI single in the opener and her team-leading 10th home run in the second game that jump-started the Wahine's three-run fourth.
The teams meet again tomorrow in a doubleheader scheduled for 1 p.m.
UH Athletics
