March 24, 2004
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STORYLINE: With regular season tournament play completed, the Rebels look forward to a rare two-game week this week ... The Rebels will head to Tucson, Ariz., for the second time this year, but this time for a non-conference doubleheader ... UNLV will meet top-ranked Arizona for the third and fourth times this season in Sunday's twin bill ... The two met early in the year at the Pepsi Arizona Tournament, where the hosts took a 10-1 victory ... The last meeting came just last week in the first round of bracket play at the Kia Classic ... Arizona defeated UNLV 10-0 ... The Rebels are part of a talented softball weekend in Tucson which sees the host Wildcats meet the U.S. Olympic Team on Friday, March 26 before playing their annual alumni game on Saturday, March 27.
ABOUT UNLV: Under first-year head coach Lonni Alameda, the Rebels return 12 letterwinners and nine starters from their 2003 squad. Offensively, the Rebels are led in hitting by senior left fielder Bridget Byrne (.447/0/8), although senior Lisa Sampson (.273/0/13) has led the squad in hitting each of the last three years ... Junior third-baseman Pauline Glenn (.207/2/11), an All-Mountain West Conference choice as a freshman, has two homers on the year, while senior Kacey Ellis (.290/0/18) paces the squad in RBI. Defensively, junior pitcher Jacqueline Kerrigan (14-13, 1.67) was an all-conference selection last year and leads the Rebels in the circle with 14 wins and 170 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.
REBELS ON THE WEB: All UNLV softball up-to-the-minute information, including team roster and bios, season schedule and results, and game and season statistics, is available on the school's Official Athletics Site, www.unlvrebels.com. A member of the Official College Sports Network, unlvrebels.com utilizes Gametracker, the state-of-the-art software to support live internet scoring. Through Gametracker, fans can follow Rebel softball action pitch-by-pitch from around the globe. For a complete schedule, log on to unlvrebels.com.
REBELS ON THE AIR: UNLV head coach Lonni Alameda can be heard every Monday at 8:00 p.m. PT on the Rebel Softball Update on KDWN AM 720 Talk Radio. Along with host and former UNLV football coach Harvey Hyde, Alameda will spend a segment talking Rebel softball, including recapping the team's play the weekend before and scouting the squad's upcoming opponents.
ABOUT ARIZONA: Arizona remained the top ranked team in the country despite losing its first game of the year in its last time out ... The Wildcats carry a 34-1 record into the weekend, having won the first 34 games of the year before falling to Washington in the championship game of the Kia Classic ... U of A will play a pair of exhibition games before meeting the Rebels on Sunday ... On Friday, Arizona hosts Team USA before Saturday's annual alumni game ... Sunday's doubleheader will mark the third and fourth meetings between Arizona and UNLV this year ... The Wildcats, then ranked No. 2, defeated UNLV 10-1 in five innings in round-robin play at the Pepsi Arizona Tournament ... The Rebels also faced the top-ranked 'Cats at last week's Kia Classic, where Arizona took a 10-0 five-inning victory ... The Rebels trail the all-time series between the two schools, 22-2 ... Ordinarily, a trip to Tucson would mark the homecoming of Rebel third baseman Pauline Glenn ... However, Glenn will not travel with the team this week as she is in Greece participating in a workout with the Greek National Team.
RANKED OPPONENTS: Through 30 games, the Rebels have played nine game against teams ranked in the NFCA Top 25 and five more against teams that received votes at some point during the year. On top of that, UNLV played a pair of games against the top-ranked team in NAIA, Simon Fraser.
KERRIGAN ALMOST THROWS NO-NO: UNLV junior Jacqueline Kerrigan almost turned one of the most special feats in the game. The Eugene, Ore., native carried a no-hitter against Utah Valley State into the seventh inning, but was disappointed when the Wolverines' Jamie Hendricks dropped a base hit into shallow centerfield with two outs. Kerrigan struck out the next batter to record the complete-game shutout and finish her second career one-hitter. The game came one day on the heels of another no-hit bid by the Rebels' ace - she held top-ranked NAIA power Simon Fraser hitless until the fifth inning, but left the game after the suspense was broken and the Rebels ahead 7-0.
WEEKLY WINNERS: 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.
On March 16, the Rebels claimed their second conference award as senior outfielder Bridget Byrne earned the league's Player of the Week honor after hitting .632 in five games. It was the first-ever award in the Las Vegas native's career. Byrne hit safely in each game, scored in all but one of them, and belted her first career triple in leading the Rebels to a 4-1 record for the week. She is in the midst of a seven-game hitting streak.
CAREER PITCHING LEADERS, PART ONE: Senior Kacey Ellis continues to make her mark on the UNLV record books. The Brentwood, Tenn., native already ranks ninth all-time with 87 appearances and eighth with a .479 (23-25) career winning percentage. With 23 career victories, she needs just three more to move past Brandi Isgar for 10th place on the school's all-time list. Her three career saves rank her fifth in the school's history.
CAREER PITCHING LEADERS, PART TWO: Ellis isn't the only active pitcher working her way through the record books. Junior Jacqueline Kerrigan has already scribbled her name throughout the career marks, ranking 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 436 and ranks her third in school history. She needs just 57 more to move past Amie Stewart, and trails leader Lori Harrigan by 289. She is on pace to finish second in school history behind Harrigan.
YEAR OF THE WORKHORSE: Kerrigan's career numbers are pretty staggering for a player in her junior year, and they have been significantly bolstered by the frequency of her play this season. Kerrigan has thrown about 73 percent of the team's innings this year. Her 170 strikeouts on the year already rank as the fourth-best single season total in school history, and the team has no less than 25 games remaining on the schedule. She needs just 54 strikeouts over that span to break Lori Harrigan's 1991 record of 223.
LEADING OFF BY EXAMPLE: The Rebels are undoubtedly gracious for the leadoff play of senior Bridget Byrne. The Rebels' leadoff hitter is having a career year. She has already eclipsed her personal best totals for hits in a season and has nearly doubled her batting average from a year ago. Through 36 games, the Rebels' left fielder has collected 51 hits in 114 at bats for an amazing .447 average. If that average holds throughout the season, she would break the school record set by Kim Rondina in 1997. Byrne leads the Mountain West Conference in hits and ranks second in the league in batting average. An honor student from Las Vegas, Byrne has not missed a start in left field in three year, a span of 160 games.
MY BIG FAT GREEK OLYMPIC TEAM TRYOUT: The Rebels will be without the services of starting third baseman Pauline Glenn this week. The Tucson, Ariz., native is a member of the Greek National Team and will spend the week of March 22-29 participating in a workout with the team in preparation for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games. A third-generation Greek descendent, Glenn has been working out with the Greek Team since last summer. If she is chosen for the Greeks' final Olympic roster, she would join Lori Harrigan as Rebels competing in the Olympic Games.
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).
ON DECK: Following the doubleheader in Tucson, the Rebels prepare for Mountain West Conference play. UNLV opens the MWC slate on the road in Utah. It will face BYU on Thursday, April 1, in Provo, before heading north to Salt Lake City for a twin bill against Utah on Friday, April 2.
