Sports

UH battles demons against Blue Demons

Coogs hope to rebound from rough weekend against USM, will face powerhouse DePaul

Cougar Sports Services

They boast two consecutive appearances in the College World Series and six consecutive years in the season-ending top 25 poll, with four times in the top 10. They are named among the nation's most elite softball squads. They're the DePaul Blue Demons, and on Saturday, the Cougars will try to perform an extremely dicey exorcism.

Over the weekend, the Cougars suffered a heartbreaking sweep to the Southern Miss Golden Eagles thanks to faulty pitching, infield errors and mental breakdowns. 

Manuel Rearte/The Daily Cougar 

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The series fell apart with Saturday's 14-0 and 7-1 losses and Sunday afternoon's 5-2 defeat, knocking the Cougar's record to 24-14 and 3-3 in Conference USA play. 

Sunday, a rotation of three hurlers -- freshman Carla Kennimer (who took the loss) and seniors Jenny Johnson and Jamie Falco -- were helpless against the Golden Eagles' bats, as UH's offense couldn't get a decent hit during Southern Miss' Jessica Holaway's complete game. 

Last season, DePaul was the first (and most recent until Southern Miss) team to ever sweep the Cougars. 

This year the squad is 10-14 on the season and 5-1 in C-USA play after splitting a pair of games on Sunday with East Carolina. DePaul dropped its first game 5-0, but came back to defeat the Pirates 10-1 in Game 2. 

The Cougars can expect another hard-hitting series against DePaul senior All-American Sarah Martz, who was named C-USA Pitcher of the Week on Monday. 

She led the Blue Demons to a 5-1 record during the opening week of C-USA play. Martz won four complete games, two against Charlotte and the two against East Carolina. In 28 innings of work, she struck out 22 batters, and walked five out of the 104 batters she faced. 

She allowed only four earned runs and kept her opponents' batting average to .163 while posting a 1.00 earned run average. 

It will be up to Houston's best bats -- senior Arelis Ferreris and juniors Kim Nesloney and Kristen Glowacz -- to redeem the Cougar offense and seek revenge on the Blue Demons. 

Before the fallout against Southern Miss, Glowacz and Nesloney were each leading the team with a .315 batting average on the season. Glowacz has a team high 23 runs batted in and five home runs, and Ferreris has blasted seven home runs.

The series will kick off at noon Saturday at the Blue Demon's Wish Field in Chicago. After the series, the Cougars continue C-USA play against Alabama-Birmingham in, interestingly enough, Birmingham.

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