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Sports
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
twulasso.com
Softball
Gymnastics
TWU in the final stretch Pioneers pick up win in LSC against Cameron The gymnastics team will compete in the collegiate nationals Brian Chetoni Reporter bchetoni@twu.edu
The Pioneers gymnastics team is taking to the skies and sticking a landing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the 2015 USA Gymnastics Collegiate National Championships on April 10-12. This competition is taking place in the Palestra. TWU will be represented by an eight-person team as the sixth seed based off of the qualifying score of 192.725. The highest qualifying score was defending six-time champion Bridgeport with 194.695. The remaining competitors are Lindenwood, 2015 Midwest Independent Conference who are seeded second with a qualifying score of 194.405 followed by Brown coming in at 193.650, Penn at 193.125 and in the fifth seed directly above TWU is Seattle Pacific with a qualifying score of 192.740. Air Force and Yale will take the seventh and eighth seed with scores of 192.595 and 191.885, respectively. TWU is no stranger to this particular competition; the pioneers have won nine championships in the last 20 years, and the most recent win was 2008. The Pioneers will begin their first go this Friday, April 10, at 1 p.m., competing against Air Force, Brown, and Lindenwood. The top five teams will then advance to the semifinals on Saturday. The event will be holding live results and live throughout the competition, and Assistant Director of Athletics Jeff Bowerman will be participating in some live chats all three days of the competition. This championship is not just about the team; it also has an
Softball gaining in conference competition Shelby Baker Editor-in-Chief sbaker3@twu.edu
Photo by Tammi Paul
Above: Pioneer gymnast competed in a recent event. The gymnastics team has won 9 titles in the last 20 years, with the most recent being in 2008.
individual competition. The top five scoring gymnasts from each event go on to individual finals on Sunday, April 12. This season, we had many personal records broken, some multiple times within the same meets. This year, TWU looks to break the winning streak of defending champion Bridgeport;
the Pioneers have come in second to them for the past four years in a row. The athletics website has links to the live chats and updates as well as the event site, where you can find tickets, schedule, live statistics, results and team information.
The Pioneers trumped Cameron 3–1 in a doubleheader April 2–3 on the Pioneer Field. This positioned the softball team as 9–6–1 in the Lone Star Conference and 17–18–1 for the season. Junior Bailee Wortham and sophomore Tori Bice shared pitching duties for all four games. Senior infielder Kendra Sancet set a new school record on Thursday, April 2, with a 53rd career home run, replacing former teammate Katie Hines’ previous record of 52. In the first game, no one scored for the first two innings until Cameron took the lead in third 1–0. However, TWU took a 6–1 lead at the bottom of the third inning and then picked up another run in the fourth. Cameron picked up one run in the fifth innning and two more at the top of sixth. TWU quickly bounced back with three runs at the bottom of the fifth inning, with the third scored with a wild pitch by sophomore Katy Stephens. While Cameron scored a fifth run in the seventh, TWU won the game 10–5. In the second game, Cameron grabbed four runs in the first inning, but TWU tied up the game in the second. The Aggies and the Pioneers traded runs
through the third and fourth innings until TWU took the lead 8–5 and kept ahead to win the game. In a press release, softball head coach Genny Stidham said: “It’s nice to have two consecutive wins. We are capable of scoring runs on offense but can’t get frustrated with what happens on defense.” TWU took home the first win of the doubleheader on Friday, April 3, 7–3, but fell short in the second game 11–1. With a scoreless first inning, TWU picked up four runs in the second inning of the first game with a two-run shot made by first-year Tylia Sylestine and a two-RBI single by sophomore Nicole Nordie. The Pioneers earned another run in the fourth, but Cameron was close behind at the top of the sixth inning at 5–3 in TWU’s favor. TWU buckled down with two runs before Bice struck out at the top of the seventh, effectively ending the game with a win for TWU. In the second game, the Aggies came out the gate with seven runs in the first inning, followed by four more runs in the second before TWU scored their sole run in the fourth inning by sophomore Alyssa Galaz. The Pioneers will return to the field April 10-11 with a four-game series against Texas A&M-Kingsville in Kingsville, Texas.