University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
No. 3 Texas
Longhorns Rally To Defeat Cajuns 3-2 in WCWS Opener
5/22/2004 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Thursday, May 22, 2003
With the loss, Louisiana-Lafayette (47-10) falls into the loser's bracket of the WCWS and will have Friday off before facing the loser of the UCLA-Cal game at 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon in an elimination game. Third-ranked Texas advances to the winner's bracket where the Horns will face the winner of UCLA-Cal in a 7 p.m. game Friday night.
Louisiana-Lafayette's return to the Women's College World Series and fourth appearance got off with a loud bang in the top of the first. True freshman Danyele Gomez ripped a towering home run over the left field wall that landed near the base of the aluminum baseball wall beyond the regulation softball wall.
Gomez's home run scored junior shortstop Jill Robertson who had reached on a throwing error by UT third baseman Wynter Turner.
It was her 20th home run of the season, which extended the single-season school record and gave UL Lafayette the early 2-0 lead off of Osterman.
Gomez is no stranger to debut home runs.
Her collegiate debut was a grand slam in the season opener against Louisiana Tech while her NCAA Regional 6 debut was a solo shot against San Diego State.
Gomez's home run ended Osterman's streak of 65 consecutive innings without a run allowed and was her first run and home run allowed since April 22 against Texas A&M.
Earlier in the season at the KIA Klassic, Gomez hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning off of Arizona's Wendy Allen that ended the Wildcats streak of 12 consecutive games without a run allowed.
After that, the USA Softball Player of the Year single-handedly shut down the Ragin' Cajuns offense by promptly retiring the final 20 UL Lafayette batters that came to the plate.
In the meantime, the Texas offense patiently chipped away at the Cajuns 2-0 lead.
Cajuns starting pitcher Brooke Mitchell (26-8) kept the Horns off of the scoreboard until the bottom of the fourth. She had worked her way out of a bases loaded jam in the second inning and retired the Longhorns in the third inning.
But in the fourth inning, UT finally broke through when Tamara Poppe deposited a Mitchell pitch over the wall in left center field to lead off the fourth inning.
With the Cajuns up top 2-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Texas' Amber Hall launched a one-out, first-pitch home run over the right field wall to put the Longhorns on top for the first time in the game at 3-2.
For Hall it was her second game-winning home run of the season.
Osterman would retire the side in the top of the seventh by striking out Gomez, Joy Webre and Tiffany Grayson.
The loss was just the Cajuns third this season when scoring first. UL Lafayette is now 44-3 when scoring first.
Osterman improved to 31-4 on the season and won her 15th straight start. For the Longhorns it was their 19th straight victory.
Osterman struck out 11 of the 23 Cajuns batters that she faced and surrendered just one hit – the Gomez home run.
Mitchell suffered the hard-luck loss for the Ragin' Cajuns as she fell to 26-8 on the season. The Pasadena, Texas, native walked six and struck out two.
UL Lafayette loses its WCWS opener for the second straight appearance. In 1996, the Cajuns fell to UCLA 2-0 and came back to win its second game 7-0 over Princeton.
UL Lafayette will return to action on Saturday at 3 p.m. against the loser of the UCLA-Cal game which began 30 minutes after the conclusion of the Cajuns and Longhorns matchup.
-- Ragin' Cajuns --
