The Huntsville Item
HUNTSVILLE — Even though she’s is in new surroundings, it seems like old times for Sara Vaughn.
Now playing for the third-ranked Blinn Lady Bucs, the former Lady Hornet is back to playing a position where she feels most comfortable, second base.
“This is where I played during my freshman and sophomore years at Huntsville,” Vaughn said Monday night. “I like it a lot.”
With the season still relatively young, Vaughn has made great strides to stepping in and making her mark with a perennial national-title contender.
Through Blinn’s 2-1 loss to Angelina College on March 10, Vaughn is batting .317 and had the third-most hits on the team with 19. Vaughn is one of the Lady Bucs’ best at getting on base and leads the team in walks with 16 and stolen bases with nine.
Since the Lady Bucs’ loss to Angelina College, Blinn has won six straight, including two two-game sweeps over Region XIV opponents Coastal Bend College and Galveston College.
Vaughn may not be trying to fill the shoes of Jeter and Bre’Neka O’Bryant, former Lady Bucs who have gone on to play at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Houston-Victoria, respectively, but she’s trying her best to fit in on a team that finished in fourth place the the national tournament last spring.
“There’s definitely some big shoes to fill,” Vaughn said. “We’ve got a young team. I think we’ve got the talent to get back to the national tournament.”
Tourney time
It was a short stay in the Region V tournament for former Huntsville Hornet Justin Ennis and Grayson County College. In the first round of the tournament, the Vikings were eliminated by Midland College 62-52. Ennis scored six points in the loss.
After two seasons with the Sam Houston State Bearkats, former Hornet Drae Murray is off to the Big Dance. The Bearkats defeated archrival Stephen F. Austin in the Southland Conference tournament championship game 64-48 to earn the league’s automatic spot in the NCAA tournament. SHSU, seeded 14th, will play No. 3 seed Baylor at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans on Thursday at approximately 2 p.m. The game will be televised on CBS.
