DENTON – North Texas opened up Conference USA play at Lovelace Stadium with two exciting wins over a scrappy Southern Mississippi team on Saturday.
After fending off the Golden Eagles for a 7-5 victory in game one, the Mean Green scored four unanswered runs in a 4-3 comeback victory to cap off the doubleheader.
"We have confidence," junior shortstop Lacy Gregory said. "We called timeout one time and I told the team 'You know if we hold them right here it only takes one inning.'
Gregory's words became true just an inning later.
Down 3-0 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning during the second game, Harley Perella started the North Texas rally with an RBI single. After an infield single from Gregory, freshman Tayla Evans drove in Katie Clark and Harley Perella with a single to right field to tie the game.
The next batter, Rhylie Makawe, then hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Kourtney Williams and give the Mean Green a 4-3 lead, their first of the contest.
After Jenna Goodrich sat down the first Golden Eagle, coach Rodney DeLong called on Hope Trautwein to close the game. Trautwein retired the next two Southern Miss batters to cap off an exciting come-from-behind win.
"Coming into the series, we knew we were going to have a dogfight, and we found a way to win two games," coach Rodney DeLong said. "Nothing better than that."
North Texas didn't have a baserunner in the second game until the fourth inning, when Gregory singled to left field to break up the perfect game.
UNT used three different pitchers in the close win. Freshman Bailey Tindell started the game and lasted five innings, allowing three runs on three hits. Goodrich came in to pitch the next 1.1 innings while Trautwein recorded the last two outs.
Trautwein's save followed a 7-5 Mean Green victory where the hard-throwing sophomore pitched the entire seven innings. At the end of the day, Trautwein collected a win and a save to improve her overall starting pitching record to 8-2. As I've said before, with Trautwein on the mound, this North Texas team is a different animal.
"We pitched well today and it kept us in the ball game," DeLong said. "After falling behind 3-0 pretty early in the game, we continued to play better defense and continued to pitch. That was probably the difference in the double header. That gave us an opportunity to win the game because we threw it well."
In the first game against Southern Miss, North Texas scored all seven runs in the first inning. Tayla Evans, Rhylie Makawe and Hannah Gerecke all drove in a run to get the rally started.
Then, Nicole Ochotnicki singled in two runs and Kenzie Young shot one down the right field line to drive in two runs to give North Texas an early 7-1 lead, which would be too much for the Golden Eagles to overcome.
"We came out hot and we were really excited," Gregory said. "We like to score first, so that was good in the first game."
After going 1-3 a weekend ago at the Texas Tech Tournament, these two wins mean so much for the Mean Green's momentum.
It's also evident that playing at Lovelace Stadium benefits North Texas greatly, as the Mean Green are 6-0 at The Lace this year. With that being said, Mean Green fans should show up in numbers tomorrow at noon to cheer on UNT as they go for the series sweep over Southern Mississippi.
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