April 30, 2006

Box Score

MONROE, La. - Texas State headed into the weekend series with Louisiana-Monroe with hopes of winning its first regular-season crown since the 2002 season, but the Lady Indians used a 3-1, 2-1 sweep in Sunday's doubleheader to knock the Bobcats into a second place finish.

The weekend series was shortened to two games - a Sunday doubleheader - due to inclement weather in the Monroe area on Saturday.

The two losses on Sunday give Texas-San Antonio, winners in 17 of their last 18, its third consecutive Southland Conference regular-season title due to a better winning percentage.

Texas State only played 23 conference games - four less than UTSA - because of a weekend series cancellation at Stephen F. Austin and a shortened series against ULM this weekend.

Texas State (33-20, 18-5) falls into second place in the conference, two games ahead of Texas-Arlington, and will be the No. 2 seed in the upcoming SLC tournament in Natchitoches, La., May 5-7.

In the first game of the afternoon, despite Katie Ann Trahan's 10 strikeout performance, ULM (27-30, 10-16) used three unearned runs on four hits in the fifth inning to get past the Bobcats, 3-1.

In the deciding second game, four Lady Indian errors were overshadowed by solo home runs from Heather Williams and senior Lindsay Schafer that ended Texas State's hopes of winning the regular season, 2-1.

The Bobcats only two runs of the afternoon came on a Kristin Gunter sacrifice in the first inning in game one and a Ryan Kos RBI double in the fourth inning of game two.

Trahan (20-10) was hit with the loss in both games, scattering 11 hits and five runs while striking out 16 Lady Indians.

No. 2 seed Texas State will play the No. 5 seed at 1:30 p.m. on Friday in the opening-round of the SLC Tournament in Natchitoches, La.