Tulsa Beats Houston in Marathon Pitchers' Duel

The two teams played through 10 innings without scoring a run, but TU finally broke through in the 11th.

Thursday, May 26th 2011, 12:21 pm

By: News On 6

Tulsa Beats Houston in Marathon Pitchers' Duel

Originally Published: Apr 17, 2011 3:50 PM CDT

Corey DeMoss
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

HOUSTON, Texas – It took 11 innings for a team to register a run, but the Tulsa softball team finally managed to come away with a 1-0 win over Houston Sunday.

As one might expect, the pitchers dominated the day. Tulsa’s Aimee Creger managed to pitch all 11 innings, faced 41 batters and gave up just seven hits. Amanda Crabtree started for Houston and held TU (33-11, 14-4) to five hits.

But Crabtree left after pitching eight shutout innings, and reliever Diedre Outon dominated the first two innings she pitched as well. But Outon got into trouble in the top of the 11th.

She allowed singles to two of the first three batters she faced in the inning, with a fielder error sandwiched in between. The second single was by Creger and it drove home the game’s only run. Skylar Swanson also tried to score on the play, but was thrown out at home.

Creger came back out to the bump in the bottom of the 11th and induced three pop-ups to end the game.

The win salvaged the three-game series for Tulsa, which lost the first two games against Houston (32-14, 13-5) by a combined score of 11-1. Those two losses dropped TU into a tie for a second with the Cougars, but Sunday’s win broke that tie and put the Golden Hurricane back in sole possession of the second spot.

Tulsa will remain on the road for its next action, a mid-week doubleheader against Kansas starting at 3 p.m. Wednesday.