April 5, 2003

Final Stats

St. Louis - No. 22 South Florida swept a Conference USA softball doubleheader by scores of 3-1 and 5-4 on Saturday afternoon at The Billiken Sports Center. The Bulls held on to win game one and rallied for a one-run win in the second contest.

The Bulls jumped on top in the first when Courtney Lewellen lifted a sac fly to right to score Kattrina Dowd, who had reached on a single. Lewellen launched a home run to center in the fourth inning to push the Bulls up 2-0. AshLeigh Williams was hit by a pitch and scored the first SLU run when Adrienne May doubled her in to cut the lead to 2-1. But USF added an insurance run in the sixth. Holly Grove singled, stole second and took third on a SLU throwing error. Christie Chapman singled for the third USF run. Leigh Ann Ellis surrendered just the one run to the Billikens and had 11 strikeouts to pick up the win for USF.

In game two, the Billikens scored in the bottom of the first for a 1-0 lead. Kerri Higgins singled and moved up after Nicole Bohnenstiehl followed with a hit. Beth Yagge doubled to the gap to score Higgins as the Billikens grabbed their first lead of the afternoon. Holly Groves hit a solo home run leading off the second as the Bulls tied the game. Both teams were held off the scoreboard until the action picked up again late. The Billikens put up three in the fifth when Bohnenstiehl launched a three-run blast over the centerfield wall. Higgins and Ashlee Heady had doubled and singled, respectively, before Bohnenstiehl blasted her fourth roundtripper of the season. However, South Florida answered with its own three-run home run. Lewellen and Groves both singled down the left field line before Christie Chapman pushed a ball over the right field fence to tie the game 4-4 in the top of the sixth. Shelly Riker singled with one out in the seventh for USF and scored the go ahead run for the Bulls. She raced around the basepath after Lewellen doubled down the leftfield line to put the Bulls up 5-4, and the Billikens went down in order in the seventh to end the game. Ellis picked up the win for the Bulls and improved to 23-6 on the year.

The Billikens dip to 11-10 overall, 6-8 in Conference USA. The nationally-ranked Bulls improve to 41-12 overall, 11-2 in C-USA. The teams finish up the series with a single game on Sunday at Noon.