April 26, 2008

Noren Reaches 400 Coaching Wins as Lutes Sweep UPS

Game One
Game Two

TACOMA - Pacific Lutheran gave departing head coach Rick Noren victories No. 399 and 400 in his PLU coaching career, defeating the host Puget Sound Loggers, 3-2 and 4-2, in a Northwest Conference softball doubleheader played Saturday afternoon.

Noren announced earlier in the week that he is leaving Pacific Lutheran after 14 years to take the athletic director post at Life Christian Academy. He will close his PLU coaching career on Sunday when the Lutes host the Loggers in another conference twinbill starting at noon. Noren has a 400-145-1 overall record as the Lutes' head coach.

The Lutes rallied for the win in the first game, coming back from a 1-0 deficit to take a 3-1 lead in the fifth inning. Stephanie Mullen was hit by a pitch and Missy Waldron reached on an error to start the rally. Two wild pitches later Mullen had scored and Waldron was on third base. Pinch hitter Rachel Wheeler-Hoyt put the Lutes ahead with a two-run homer over the fence in right-centerfield.

Puget Sound closed the deficit to 3-2 with a run in the fifth and was poised to take the lead in the sixth with runners on second and third, but PLU pitcher Hadley Schmitt got out of the inning with a strikeout.

Schmitt picked up her seventh win of the season, allowing two runs, one earned, on five hits while striking out nine and walking four. Heather Walling had two of Pacific Lutheran's six hits in the game.

In the second contest, the Lutes collected 13 hits in support of Rachel Wheeler-Hoyt, who won her 10th game of the season. Wheeler-Hoyt threw her second consecutive complete game three-hitter, allowing no earned runs while fanning three and walking two.

PLU took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Walling singled and eventually scored on Caitlin Brown's sacrifice fly. The Lutes added a run in the third when Brown, Wheeler-Hoyt and Carly Starke loaded the bases with singles, and Beth Haahr came through in the clutch with a two-out RBI single. In the fourth inning, Mullen hit a one-out triple and scored on an error, and in the fifth inning Starke led off with a single and scored on Crystal Reno's base hit.

Brown led the Lutes with three hits while Starke, Haahr and Mullen all collected a pair of hits apiece in the game.

- PLU -