Feb. 27, 2004
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STORYLINE: UNLV remains home for the third straight week as it hosts Simon Fraser and Utah Valley State in a three-team double round-robin tournament at Eller Media Stadium this weekend. The Rebel Spring Tournament will feature three games daily with each school facing both other opponents on Saturday, Feb. 28 and Sunday, Feb. 29. The Rebels will play the first two games of the day on Saturday, with SFU and UVSC scheduled to square off in the day's finale. The two visitors will meet again to kick off Sunday action at 10:00 a.m., before each faces UNLV one last time.
ABOUT UNLV: Under first-year head coach Lonni Alameda, the Rebels return 12 letterwinners and nine starters from their 2003 squad. Offensively, senior Bridget Byrne (.366/0/4) leads the team in batting average, but senior Lisa Sampson (.302/0/3) has led the team in hitting in both of the last two seasons. Junior third-baseman Pauline Glenn (.206/2/5), an All-Mountain West Conference choice as a freshman, has two homers on the year and leads the squad with five RBI. Defensively, junior pitcher Jacqueline Kerrigan (5-7, 1.29) was an all-conference selection last year and leads the Rebels in the circle with five wins and 78 strikeouts.
HEAD COACH Lonni Alameda: The UNLV softball team has a new face in the dugout this year as Lonni Alameda is in her first season as the Rebels' head coach. Alameda came to Las Vegas from Stanford University, where she oversaw the Cardinal pitching staff and helped coach the team to six straight NCAA Regional appearances. A two-sport star at the University of Oklahoma, Alameda was a two-time All-Big Eight infielder and hit .359 as a senior in 1992. She earned her first career victory in a 3-2 eight-inning decision over New Mexico on Feb. 6.
ABOUT SIMON FRASER: Simon Fraser, an NAIA school located in Burnaby, B.C., Canada, opened its season this week in California with games against Dominican University in San Rafel, Calif. ... SFU took both ends of its doubleheader, posting a 5-2 win in the opener and stealing the nightcap, 9-8 in extra innings ... The Clan are the defending NAIA national champions and are the preseason top-ranked team ... A scheduled meeting with California Baptist on Thursday was rained out ... UNLV and Simon Fraser have never met on the softball diamond.
ABOUT UTAH VALLEY STATE: Utah Valley State begins its first season competing in the NCAA and will open the 2004 campaign in Las Vegas after its scheduled opener against Mesa State College was rained out ... The Wolverines competed in the NJCAA last season, posting a 46-19 record and a second-place NJCAA Conference finish ... UVSC and UNLV have never met in softball.
RANKED OPPONENTS: Just two weeks into the season and UNLV has already gotten its share of ranked opponents. Through 10 games, the Rebels have faced three opponents ranked in the NFCA Top 25 and three others that received votes at some point during the year. All in all, the Rebels are scheduled to face 11 different opponents that received votes in the NFCA poll.
WEEKLY WINNER: It took just one week for Rebel ace Jacqueline Kerrigan to earn her first Mountain West Conference Pitcher of the Week award. In the first week of the year, Kerrigan was cited by the conference for posting a 2-2 record and striking out 27 batters in four games at the Pepsi Arizona Tournament in Tucson, Ariz. It was the fourth time in her career that the Rebels' junior pitcher had been so honored.
CAREER PITCHING LEADERS: The Rebels have two players that are weeding their way through the school's career pitching leaders lists. Senior Kacey Ellis and junior Jacqueline Kerrigan both already rank among the school's leaders in appearances. Ellis needs just four more wins to move past Tanya Edwards for 10th place on the school's all-time list and is already the sixth-winningest pitcher in school history by percentage. Kerrigan ranks in the pack in appearances, starts, complete games, innings pitched, wins, losses, saves, shutouts, ERA and strikeouts. Perhaps most impressive in her strikeout total, which currently sits at 344 and ranks her fourth in school history. She needs just 21 more to move past former teammate Geney Orris and trails leader Lori Harrigan by 381. She is on pace to finish second in school history behind Harrigan.
PRESEASON POLLS: While UNLV did not rank in the Top 25 poll, the Rebels did check in at No. 5 in the Mountain West Conference Preseason Coaches Poll announced Jan. 22. With 23 points and four first-place votes, San Diego State was chosen as a slight favorite to win its third straight league title over Colorado State, which scored 21 points and the other two first-place votes. Rounding out the poll were BYU (18), Utah (13), UNLV (9) and New Mexico (6).
