PREVIEW | Mountain Lions to Open RMAC Season at Mines

2/19/2020 5:38:00 PM

By: Sarah Meier, Associate Athletic Director

This Week's Games

The University of Colorado Colorado Springs softball team (4-7) is scheduled to open the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference season at Colorado School of Mines Feb. 22-23 in Golden, Colo. Saturday's doubleheader action will start at 12 p.m. The final two games of the four-game series will be played Sunday starting at 11 a.m.

Game Coverage

Weather Forecast

Saturday's weather in Golden, Colo. will be the better of the two days. The temperature will be 50 degrees under partly cloudy skies. Snow showers are expected to hit the area on Sunday with a high reaching 38 degrees.

RMAC Standings

The Mountain Lions and all 13 RMAC schools will begin conference play Feb. 22-23.

The Series

The Orediggers hold a 15-5-1 all-time series lead over the Mountain Lions. The two teams last met in the 2019 RMAC Tournament with CSM holding the upper edge, 7-5. The last time the Mountain Lions defeated CSM was last season in Aztec, N.M. in a nine-inning game, 5-4. The Mountain Lions enter CSM Softball Field 1-8 overall.

Scouting the Orediggers

Colorado School of Mines enters the weekend with a 3-6 overall record and a 1-3 record at home. The Orediggers are on a three-game losing streak but all three losses have come from Top-10 teams, including two losses this past weekend to No. 1 Augustana.
Mines has been outscored, 63-40, and outhit, 90-71.
Stefanie Brunello is the offensive leader for Mines, owning a .455 batting averaging with 10 hits, five runs, five RBI and 16 total bases. She has added a team high five walks and is responsible for the Orediggers lone home run this season.
Sydney Marchando has started a team high four games in the circle and pitched a team high 23 innings. She is 2-2 on the season, allowing 19 earned runs on 34 hits as part of a 5.78 ERA and 23 strikeouts.

Hot Takes

The Mountain Lions recorded their first program win over Lubbock Christian University last Sunday, 2-0. The win also marked UCCS' first shutout of the season and the first time they scored a run against the Chaps.
Freshman Brianna Santos leads the Mountain Lions offense in multiple categories, including batting average (.444), hits (16), doubles (5), triples (2), RBI (14) and total baes (28). Santos has also scored seven runs and hit a home run while going 3-for-3 in stolen bases. Defensively, she has accounted for 12 putouts and assisted on two without committing an error.
Courtnie Heller is coming off a weekend where she blasted a team high three home runs. Heller is second on the team in RBI (8) and total bases (19), while drawing five walks.
Solana Martinez has scored a team high nine runs behind seven hits and a team high six walks. Four of her hits have been extra base hits (three doubles, home run). She has also batted in five runs and is errorless in the field on 18 chances.
Braelyne Crenshaw is responsible for all four wins in the circle for UCCS. Crenshaw is 4-2 with six starts, five complete games, 20 strikeouts and a 5.59 ERA in 36.1 innings pitched. She registered a complete game shutout this past Sunday in a 2-0 win against LCU.

Award Winner

Courtnie Heller was tabbed this week's Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Softball Player of the Week for her performance this past weekend in Oklahoma. Heller led the Mountain Lions to two wins at the UCO/OC Edmond Festival, hosted in Edmond, Okla. and Oklahoma City, Okla. In five games, Heller batted .462 behind six hits, six runs batted in, three runs, three home runs and three walks.

In the Mountain Lions first win of the weekend against Oklahoma Christian (W, 5-4), Heller hit two home runs on Saturday. Trailing 4-0 and leading off the sixth inning, Heller's first home run against OC sparked a four-run inning to tie the game at 4-4. In her next at-bat as the leadoff hitter in the seventh, she hit a single home run that was the eventual game-winning run. Against LCU, she hit a two-run home in the fourth inning that resulted in a 2-0 win.

UCCS Under Coach Ricki Rothbauer-Stubbs

The 2020 season marks Ricki Rothbauer-Stubbs fifth season at the helm of the Mountain Lions, and her 10^th season as a head coach. In her five seasons at UCCS, Rothbauer-Stubbs is 97-111 overall. In 10 seasons as a head coach, she owns a 188-281 overall record. Rothbauer-Stubbs spent her first four seasons as a head coach at Texas A&M-Kingsville (68-144), followed by one season at Northwestern Oklahoma (23-26). She recorded her first winning season in 2019 when she led UCCS to a 28-26 overall record.

Upcoming Games

UCCS will stay on the road for the fourth straight week when they travel to Las Vegas, N.M. to take on New Mexico Highlands University Feb. 29 – March 1.