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HOUSTON – HBU dropped a tough 3-2 decision to visiting Sam Houston State to bring the 2017 campaign to an end on Senior Day at Husky Field on Saturday afternoon.
The scoring came early in the game with Sam Houston State (23-25, 14-13 SLC) striking in the top of the first. Megan McDonald reached with a leadoff bunt single and then moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt by Tiffany Thompson. Two batters later, Hannah Marino lined a single to left center to bring McDonald around to score and put the Bearkats ahead 1-0.
In the HBU (17-26, 8-19) half of the inning,
Cecilia Bauer drew a one-out walk followed by a double off the bat of
Kassie James that gave the Huskies runners on second and third.
Nicole Shedd sent a fly ball into foul territory down the left field line for a sacrifice fly that scored Bauer and evened the score at 1-1.
The Bearkats struck again in the third with back-to-back singles by Samantha Belongia and McDonal to lead off the inning. HBU starter
Emily Mueller struck out the next batter and induced a grounder back to her for the second out of the inning with the runners advancing to second and third with two outs. Marino again came up big with a single up the middle that brought both Belongia and McDonal across the plate and put SHSU ahead 3-1.
HBU again had an answer in the bottom half of the inning, with
Heidi Jaquez and Bauer connecting on back-to-back singles with one out. James then sent a fly ball to right that was caught but Belongia's errant throw trying to catch the runners advancing went well to the right of third base and allowed Jaquez to come around and score, cutting the Huskies' deficit to one.
The Huskies chased Sam Houston State's starting pitcher, Tayler Atkinson, from the game in the fourth after a leadoff single from
Libby Brown. Reliever Lindsey McLeod came on and shut the HBU offense down the rest of the way, not allowing a single baserunner over four innings of work.
Mueller suffered the loss in the circle, allowing three earned runs on six hits over seven innings of work. The senior struck out one and walked two. James' double was her fifth of the season as she went 1-for-3 in the game. Bauer was 1-for-2, bringing her season average to .294.
HBU's two seniors, Mueller and Bauer, combined to appear in 263 games for the Huskies throughout their careers. Mueller concludes her career with 91 appearances, the seventh-highest total in program history, along with 25 complete games, 19 career wins, two saves and 124 strikeouts in 323 and two-thirds innings. Bauer finishes her career eighth on the all-time list in home runs with 18 and ninth in walks, with 53. Additionally, she has 80 runs scored, 58 runs batted in, 14 doubles, five triples and a career batting average of .283.
