The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Blazers Head To Houston With Season On The Line
5/6/2005 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 6, 2005
HOUSTON, Texas - The UAB softball team will face the Houston Cougars this weekend in a crucial Conference USA series in the final series of the regular season for both teams at the Cougar Softball Complex.
The series begins on Saturday with a doubleheader set for 1 p.m. The series finale will begin at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
The Blazers (23-25, 7-14 C-USA) enter this weekend's series riding a season-best three-game winning streak and are one of three teams still in contention for the final berth in the C-USA Tournament May 12-14 in Tampa, Fla. Houston (26-26, 9-12) is two games in front of the Blazers while Southern Miss is between the two teams with an 8-13 mark.
The top six teams in the final standings qualify for the C-USA Tournament and DePaul, Louisville, East Carolina, and tournament-host USF have already earned their spot. A sweep by UAB this weekend would guarantee the Blazers a spot in the tournament, regardless of the outcome of the East Carolina-Southern Miss series in Hattiesburg, Miss. If the Blazers won only two of three games versus the Cougars, then they must hope for a sweep by East Carolina in order to make the tournament. The Blazers lost two of three games to Southern Miss last weekend in Birmingham.
UAB swept Chattanooga in a non-conference doubleheader on Wednesday at home, winning 6-3 in game one on a seventh-inning walk-off home run by senior center fielder Sara Christophel, and then using a six-run sixth inning to break a 2-2 tie and cruise to an 8-2 victory in game two.
The Blazers' bats have been hot of late, especially that of sophomore RF Lindsay Stanley, who is currently in the midst of a 10-game hitting streak and has hit safely in 15 of her last 16 games. She is hitting a team-best .335 and leads the team with 61 hits. Stanley tied a conference record in last Sunday's 12-11 win over Southern Miss as she collected four hits in the game.
Sara Christophel is 8-25 in her last eight games with seven RBI and eight runs scored. UAB has recorded at least seven hits in each of its last eight games while scoring 12 runs in a game twice in that span. Christophel has her average up to .263 and leads the team in both home runs (5) and RBI (28).
The Blazers will aim to extend their three-game winning streak when they begin the series on Saturday at 1 p.m. versus the Cougars.
