May 11, 2000

Salt Lake City, Utah - The University of New Mexico followed the trend for the day by blasting an early home run to defeat UNLV, 7-0, in the third game of the Mountain West Conference Softball Championship played at the University of Utah today. New Mexico improved to 37-17 on the season and advances to game No. 7 at 9 a.m. Saturday to meet the winner of the 2 p.m. Friday game between San Diego State and the CSU/Utah loser. UNLV fell to 18-40 and will play BYU in game No. 6 at 11:30 a.m. Friday.

The Lobos scored five times in the second inning, four of those coming on a grand slam home run by Danielle Cassara. This marked the 10th home run of the season for Cassara. All runs were unearned after Cayley Warner and Krissy Keene reached on errors. UNM added another unearned run in the fifth and the first earned run of the game on a Rachael Wennekamp single for the final margin.

UNM pitcher Kathy Moore improved to 17-9 by scattering four hits and notched her third straight game without allowing an earned run. UNLV's Nicole Traux was tagged with the loss and slipped to 8-22 on the season.

Because of a two-hour snow delay this morning, the tournament schedule has been revised. Game No. 4 (Utah vs. Colorado State) scheduled for 4:30 p.m. tonight, will be played at 9 a.m. Friday morning. Game No. 6 between BYU and UNLV will now take place at 11:30 a.m. Friday. The 2 p.m. game will be game No. 5 between San Diego State and the loser of the 9 a.m. game. Game No. 8 will take place at 4:30 p.m. Friday. New Mexico will play in game No. 7 against the winner of game No. 5 on Saturday at 9 a.m. The Championship game (No. 11) will be the final game on Saturday. The if needed games will not be played.