Cats pound Indiana 16-0, down Evansville 4-0.
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (March 18, 2000) — The University of Kentucky softball team earnedback-to-back wins Saturday afternoon on the opening day of the Aces Classic’including a 16-0 victory over Indiana, a game in which the Cats broke four offensiveteam records. UK’s two victories Saturday improved its overall record this seasonto 13-13, the first time in school history the Cats have reached the .500 mark after20 games played in a season.
UK, winners of six of its last seven games, used the biggest offensive explosion inthe four-year history of the program to defeat the Hoosiers 16-0 in the Cats’second game of the day. The Cats broke single-game school marks for runsscored in a game (16), hits (18), RBIs (15), and total bases (22).
Three Wildcats recorded three hit performances led by junior Tiffany Kruse whohad two doubles, a triple, and three RBIs. Leslie Kwiatkowski went 3-for-3 andscored three runs with an RBI.
Leading 3-0 going into the bottom of the third inning, UK erupted for 13 runs on 12hits as the Cats went on to defeat the Hoosiers in five innings due to the eight-runmercy rule.
Hurler Keary Camunas, who won both games on the day to improve to 7-7 on theseason, pitched three shutouts innings, before sophomore reliever Jen Howlandclosed out the game for UK with two scoreless innings.
In UK’s first game, the Cats defeated host Evansville 4-0 led by Camunas’ two-hitshuout, her third shutout of the season and 15th of her career. Freshman NikkiJones led UK at the plate, going 2-for-3 with two stolen bases.
In the bottom of the first, Beth Fogle scored from third on a fielder’s choice byKwiatkowski to give UK a 1-0 lead. The Cats added three insurance runs in thebottom of the sixth. Tiffany Kruse tripled to left center, scoring Kwiatkowski andAngus. Sophomore Sandi Dengler followed with an RBI-single to left field as Krusescored to give UK a 4-0 win. The victory avenged UK’s 2-0 loss to the Aces lastweekend at the Kentucky Invitational.
“Our bats were on fire today, and we got great pitching from Keary Camunas,” UKcoach Beth Kirchner said. “We are playing really well right, and I think we willcontinue to build on our momentum.”
UK returns to action on Sunday when the Cats take on Loyola-Chicago at 11 a.m. (CST) followed by Butlerat 5 p.m.
R H EUE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1UK 1 0 0 0 0 3 x 4 6 3WP Camunas (6-7) and Dengler; LP Conn (6-5) and Hahn. 2B Kwiatkowski (UK);3B Kruse (UK)Records UE (17-8-2); UK (12-13). R H EIU 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 2UK 3 0 13 0 x 16 18 0WP Camunas (7-7), Howland and Dengler, Snider; LP Smith (0-1), Cooke andMonroe. 2B Monroe (IU), Kruse 2 (UK); 3B Kruse (UK)Records IU (6-15); UK (13-13).
