Huskies find bats again, sweep Oregon schools

Apr 20, 2009, 12:00 AM

Even in victory, their bats were cold - until yesterday, when an encouraging offensive display against Oregon State had Washington head softball coach Heather Tarr proclaiming that her team's lull at the plate may have finally ended. The No. 4 Huskies finished a three-game sweep of the Oregon schools with a 7-1 pounding of Oregon State yesterday in Corvallis, which came after a 2-0 win Friday over Oregon and a nine-inning, 1-0 win against the Beavers Saturday. "[Yesterday] was our team," Tarr said. "It was the team that we saw the first eight weeks of the season. For some reason, we've had a lull. But I believe we turned the corner after Saturday's game and had a bunch of people kind of talk about where we need to go and what we needed to do [Sunday]." Whatever they said must have worked. Washington pounded out 11 hits against the Beavers, using a two-run first inning to fuel what was the Huskies' most impressive offensive performance since they beat Arizona State 11-3 at home two weeks ago. Washington (34-7, 7-4 Pac-10) had been shut out in its four previous road losses and was no-hit by UCLA pitcher Megan Langenfeld in a 10-0 drubbing nine days ago. And it didn't look as if things had improved much. Solo home runs by Ashley Charters and Danielle Lawrie provided the only offense the Huskies would get - and the only they would need - in a 2-0 win over Oregon. Lawrie tossed a two-hit shutout against the Ducks, then went all nine innings while allowing only three hits in the UW's 1-0 blanking of OSU. Charters scored the game-winner in that one, beating out a throw to the plate after Jen Salling hit a ground ball to the first baseman. The Huskies had only four hits. Lawrie finished the weekend by yielding just three hits to the Beavers yesterday, their lone run coming in the bottom of the seventh inning when the game had already been decided. As expected as the three wins may have been, since OSU and Oregon occupy the bottom two spots in the Pac-10, they aren't any less important for the UW, which knows as well as anyone how valuable every win in this conference is. But what they finally got done in the batter's box will be what deserves the most celebration this weekend. "Much better weekend in general," Tarr said. "Obviously, the results were great. Our process was a lot better [yesterday]. I was proud of our team being able to come out and jump on them from the first pitch." Reach sports editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.

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