April 28, 2007

Final Stats

GREENVILLE, N.C. - The University of Houston softball team rode an Angel Shamblin three-hit shutout coupled with a 2-for-3 performance and two RBIs from Christa Raley en route to a 4-0 victory over East Carolina Saturday afternoon in game one of a Conference USA weekend series at the ECU Softball Field.

Houston (36-14, 17-2 C-USA) clinches its first Conference USA regular season crown in program history and the No. 1 seed in the upcoming conference tournament with the win.

"This is a day that our program has been waiting for," head coach Kyla Holas said. "Our team has put in a lot of hard work to win this regular season championship. Angel pitched extremely efficient, and our offense stayed discipline at the plate. This is the first of our goals that we set at the beginning of the season. We still have some work to do."

Shamblin set the tone early and sat down five of the first 10 ECU hitters she faced via the strikeout. The Florida native tossed her 10th shutout of the season, racking up nine strikeouts against one walk. She was touched up for just a trio of singles.

East Carolina's (34-17, 10-8 C-USA) Keli Harrell was tagged with the loss and fell to 16-11. She gave up four runs on eight hits.

"My focus was not on winning the regular season championship but on pitching my game against East Carolina," Shamblin said. "The defense did an excellent job behind me and helped me get out of a couple of tough spots."

Jessica Valis opened the fourth inning with an infield single and moved to second base on a wild pitch. Two batters later, Christa Raley came through with a clutch two-out single to left single to give Houston a 1-0 lead.

"I swung at the pitches that Harrell wanted me to swing at in my first at-bat," Raley said. "I made a couple of adjustments in my second at-bat and stay disciplined. I've wanted to be more calm and smooth since moving the cleanup spot in the lineup instead of swinging out of my shoes."

The Cougars broke the game open with three runs in the sixth inning. Jessica Valis ripped a leadoff double to left centerfield. After a Katie Bush single put runners on the corners, Elaina Nordstrom knocked a single up-the-middle to make it 2-0.

Raley added another RBI-single to score Bush, while Haley Valis completed the frame with a RBI-single to centerfield for the final margin of 4-0.

"My goal is to get things started on offense," Jessica Valis said. "Once I get on-base and get into scoring position it pumps up my teammates to drive me home."

Game two of the doubleheader is slated for 2:15pm CST. Live stats from the ECU Softball Field will be available on UHCougars.com

Cougar Notes
This afternoon's meeting was the 17th all-time meeting between Houston and East Carolina on the softball diamond ... The Cougars improve to 10-7 against the Pirates and have won four of the last five meetings in the series dating back to last season ... The Houston pitching staff has not allowed a run in its last 28.1 innings of work ... The Cougars push their record to 24-0 on the season when scoring four or more runs ... The Cougars have won 35 of its last 37 games against current non-ranked opponents ... Houston has won 42 of 57 games over the last two seasons when Jessica and Haley Valis are in the starting infield ... The Cougars are 29-7 in day games ... Houston has won 18 of 22 decisions this season when the game is decided by four or more runs ... The Cougars improve to 28-7 this season and to 112-30 since the start of the 2004 season when scoring first ... Houston also moves to 101-4 since the start of the 2004 season when carrying a lead into the seventh inning ... Jessica Valis and Elaina Nordstrom have started in all 112 games of their careers ... Laura Durham also has played in all 112 games of her Houston career since transferring from Texas A&M ... Katie Bush has made 109 consecutive starts in centerfield ... Jessica Valis is the only Cougar to hit safely in each of Houston's 19 Conference USA contests ... The Shiner native has hit safely in 18 of her last 20 games ... 12 of the 18 outings over the stretch have been multi-hit efforts ... Houston improves to 50-12 when Jessica Valis scores a run in her career ... The Cougars also are 34-11 when Valis tallies a multi-hit effort ... It was her 22nd multi-hit effort of the season and 45th of her career ... Valis now has 139 career hits and is 21 away from matching Jenilee Skender (2002-05) for the No. 4 slot ... Valis' 67 hits in 2007 ties her with Kristen Glowacz (2004) for the No. 2 most hits in a single season ... She needs five more hits to match her program mark from last season ... Katie Bush has registered a hit in 13 of her last 18 outings ... Houston moves to 29-15 since the start of last season when Jessica Valis and Katie Bush tally a hit in the same game ... Elaina Nordstrom knocked a RBI-single in the fifth inning and has reached base in 98 of 112 career games ... Nordstrom joins Jessica Valis as the only Cougars to reach base in each of Houston's 19 C-USA games ... Bush and Nordstrom now have 101 career hits and pass Lindsay Durham (2001-04) for sole possession of 11th place on the program's career hits ... The duo is six hits away from tying Jeanie Davis (2002-05) for the No. 5 spot ... Christa Raley tallied her fifth multi-hit game of the season and 14th of her career ... The La Porte native has reached base in 33 of her last 38 games ... 17 of Raley's 23 RBIs this season have come in Conference USA action ... 13 of those 17 RBI have come since Raley moved to the No. 4 spot in the lineup in the series finale against Memphis (March 25) ... Haley Valis notched her sixth multi-hit game of the season and eighth of her career ... The Shiner native had her six-game streak in C-USA action scoring a run come to a close ... Amanda Grote has reached base in her last five C-USA games ... Angel Shamblin added to her single season program record by picking up her 24th win in the circle ... With nine strikeouts, the Florida native moves to 19 Ks from matching Jenny Johnson (2001-04) for the top spot in program history ... The junior right-hander also tossed her 10th shutout of the season and has not allowed a run in her last 22.1 innings ... She also has allowed two or less earned runs in 29 of her last 33 starts dating back to last season.