Game one box
Game two box

ALVA, Okla. (April 23, 2009) – Oklahoma Christian University softball coach Tom Heath picked up his 450th career win in a Lady Eagle sweep over Northwestern Oklahoma State University on Thursday.

Oklahoma Christian collected wins of 5-4 and 9-1 to improve to 29-16 and 12-8 in the Sooner Athletic Conference. The Lady Eagles are now winners of five-straight games heading into a Friday meeting with No. 5 St. Gregory's University (Okla.) in Shawnee, Okla. OC returns home on Saturday to play Southern Nazarene University (Okla.).

Heath – who started the program in 1995 – is now 450-322 (.583) in 15 seasons at the Lady Eagle helm. He has the second most wins of any coach in the SAC, trailing only Oklahoma City's Phil McSpadden (1,124 wins entering 2009). Heath has guided the Lady Eagles to two NAIA National Tournaments (2002, 2003) and coached 13 NAIA All-Americans.

"I'm glad to reach the milestone, but I'm not in this for that type of thing. It's been great to have success and win a lot of games over the years, but it's more important for me to be around these kids and have an impact on them. This is really just a tribute to the outstanding young women I've had the honor of working with in my time here," Heath said.

The Lady Eagles led game one 3-0 after five and a half innings before a late Lady Ranger rally sent the game to extras. Sophomore Leigh Leonard won both games for OC to improve to 10-3 on the year.

In the opener, Amy Urbanovsky aired a sacrifice fly in the first inning, Christin Dobbs singled in a run in the fifth, and Tracy Washam plated a run with a double in the sixth to put OC up 3-0. Starting pitcher Caitlin Matthies held Northwestern at bay until the fifth when the home team scored three times to knot the score at 3-3.

OC went back on top in the sixth on another Washam RBI double, but NWOSU answered with a run in the bottom half to leave the score deadlocked at 4-4.

The game moved to extra innings where the Lady Eagles scored first. Washam again came up with the big hit, this time ripping a RBI single that scored Amber Canady to make it 5-4 OC in the eighth. Leonard slammed the door on the NWOSU with an inning and two thirds of scoreless work to finish the game to pick up her first win of the day.

Washam was 3-for-4 with two RBIs and Dobbs went 2-for-4 with a run and a RBI in the game. Matthies lasted six innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on eight hits while striking out three.

OC took care of NWOSU in only five innings in game two after jumping out to a quick 5-1 cushion.

The teams traded single-run innings in the first before the Lady Eagles posted three scores in the second. Ashley Noles and Dobbs each smoked two-RBI doubles in the inning.

OC tacked on two-run outputs in the fourth and fifth innings to end the game in a run rule. Casey Brady and Washam had RBI knocks in the fourth, and Brady doubled in a pair in the fifth to put the game away.

Leonard earned the win again with five innings of one-run softball. She struck out one and allowed just four hits.

Brady went 3-for-4 with four RBIs in the nightcap, and Dobbs posted a 2-for-3, two-run, two-RBI game. Urbanovsky – the reigning SAC Player of the Week – also went 2-for-3 with three runs scored.

-OC-