Chelsea Troupe, who has been playing well this season, suffered what might be a season-ending injury Saturday against Houston. (Image: Brian Kanof)

Houston’s softball team added insult to injury after embarrassing UTEP 15-0 to complete a three-game sweep yesterday at the Helen of Troy Softball Complex.

Before the series started, there was already bad blood between the two teams as UTEP felt disrespected by Houston. Things only intensified in the first inning of game two when tempers flared after a “dirty” play was committed by the Cougars.

Houston’s sophomore shortstop Brooke Lathan was on third base when she attempted to score on a wild pitch. UTEP catcher Chelsea Troupe was able to corral the ball as she ran back home to tag Lathan out. While Troupe dove, Lathan ran over Troupe in the process throwing an elbow and knocking Troupe to the ground.

Troupe laid motionless on the floor as the crowd became silent. The umpire immediately ejected Lathan as Troupe with blood trickling out of her mouth was attended to. Troupe was clearly in pain as tears flowed from her eyes. She was unable to walk off on her own as she held on to the coaches who led her off the field.

Senior Kia Moore’s was enraged after the Miners were defeated in the second game. Moore’s anger could not be contained as she talked about the collision and how disrespectful the Cougars had been.

“From the beginning, this team [Houston] had shown a lot of disrespect, not only to us as players, but to our coaches,” Moore said. “We were already fired up, and then on top of that after seeing one of our players get taken out like that, we were definitely fired up. We wanted to kill this team.”

Despite gaining some motivation from the “dirty” play, the Miners could not do much to slow down the Cougars’ offense.

Houston (28-12, 11-4 C-USA) took the series with 13-3, 10-2, and 15-0 victories. The Cougars were led by senior pitcher Amanda Crabtree, who pitched a total of 10 innings, recording two wins, striking out 19 batters, allowing only six hits while giving up no runs.

UTEP (16-26, 1-11 C-USA) pitchers, on the other hand, performed dreadfully from the circle. The Miner pitchers gave up a whopping 38 runs on 43 hits, walked 12 and only registered six strikeouts. None of the three games lasted the entire seven innings as UTEP was run ruled in each.

On the offensive side of the ball in game one, UTEP did not well, which was not the way they hoped to start the series. The Miners were only able to get five hits while striking out 10 times in the first game.

Head coach James Rodriguez believed that the game ultimately came down to Houston swinging the bats better than the Miners.

“They [Houston] did a good job of putting the bat on the ball,” Rodriguez said. “They got a lot of hits. Some of them were ‘Texas Leaguers,’ and some of them were hit pretty hard, but they put the ball in play and made things happen.”

Even though the score made it seem like the Miners never had a shot of winning, there were times when they were only a timely hit away from being back in the ball game. Sophomore Kayleigh Walts noticed that a few more hits could have made the outcome of the game a little different.

“Our bats weren’t as alive today,” Walts said. “We had good moments; we just weren’t able to string them all together. We had plenty of good moments, but we weren’t able to push those runs right across.”

The Miners will attempt to slow down this downward spiral that they have had in conference play as they look gain momentum with only four weeks left to play in the season.

Their next stop is in Hattiesburg, Miss. where they take on Southern Miss in a three-game series starting on April 16^th.