UH softball fighting for a title shot
The Cougars softball team will be in the hunt for its first American Athletic Conference championship this weekend and have all the tools needed to succeed.
After a few down years by the softball program’s standard, head coach Kristin Vesely has brought the team back to familiar territory as regional contenders.
Righting the ship
Houston was a NCAA Regionals regular and made it to the tournament seven times from 2004 through 2014, but the team had a couple down years before former head coach Kyla Holas stepped down.
The tournament pits the 64 best teams in 16 groups of four and the team eliminate each other until one team is crowned as the NCAA Champion.
In Vesely’s first year as head coach in 2017, the team finished second in the AAC and went to the finals of the championship tournament, where it fell 1–0 to the №1 seeded Tulsa.
Houston fell to Tulsa in the semifinals of the 2018 conference tournament, but were still able to make it to the regionals for the first time since 2014.
There, Houston got to the second round of the Baton Rouge Regional before falling to LSU and then Louisiana to end the season.
Softball America’s latest predictions placed Houston in the Baton Rouge Regional again this season against projected №8 seed LSU, but a strong performance at the conference tournament could put it against a lower seeded regional host.
This year’s Houston team is a step above last season’s and its elevated pitching could bring home a title.
Rearmed and refreshed
A boon for the Cougars will be its elite pitching rotation. Two of Houston’s pitchers are in the top three in the conference in ERA and another is №7.
Senior Savannah Heebner has been the top pitcher for the Cougars during her time at UH and the team used her arm to get 26 wins last season.
Her skill got her drafted to the professional league, but Houston not had to rely on her as much this season. She pitched in 237.2 innings across 43 games last season, but has only needed to throw 142 IP in 22 games this year.
Heebner said that the amount of pitching she had to due last season often gave her a case of a noodle arm and she had trouble controlling pitches, but that it hasn’t happened at all this season.
“It’s helped greatly (not having to pitch as much), because then towards post season I’m not already burnt out,” Heebner said.
It would not have been possible if her teammates had not stepped up and become even better to bear more of the load.
Senior Presley Bell improved her ERA to 1.24 this season from 2.40 last year and junior Trystan Melancon improved her ERA from 3.31 to 2.28.
Melancon had a pair of great performances this season with a no-hitter against Northern Illinois and a perfect game against DePaul.
“I was excited, but it did not really fully set it in right away,” Melancon said after both games and she also said that she was just happy to have put her team in a winning situation.
Houston has the second best team ERA in the AAC and the team also has the best batting average in the conference, which has made it a huge threat.
Riding the momentum
The team found its groove early in the year and have steadily worked on the little things to improve.
Houston started the season with mostly home games and played 22 of its first 23 games at Cougar Softball Stadium before the team went on the road for its next 10 games.
While the long stretches of home and road games was not intentional when scheduling, the first chunk of games provided the team stability and a chance to find its footing before hitting the road for 14 of its final 26 games.
“It was just kind of how it fell,” Vesely said. “It is our hardest year in the conference because we had some of the toughest opponents on the road, but it was good for us to be challenged.”
That tough stretch of road games prepared the team well and the Cougars have heated up in its final run of games.
Houston has won 11 of its last 13 games and have outscored opponents 72 to 25 in that time span.
Houston will start the tournament Thursday afternoon against №6 UConn, which it swept in the regular season.
If Houston wins and №2 Tulsa defeats №7 ECU, the Cougars would get another chance to finally beat the Golden Hurricanes in the AAC Tournament.
