Lake Charles, La. – The North Texas softball team split a pair of games to open up the 2020 season on Friday. The Mean Green opened the season with a win but were done in by errors to drop game two.
 
"We just were uncomfortable today," head coach Rodney DeLong said. "It's early, this time of the year these kind of things will happen. We're definitely not panicking, playing in this environment is going to make us better and that's why we came to this tournament."
 
Throughout the two games, the North Texas pitching staff only surrendered three earned runs and struck out 18 batters, but the bats only went 7-for-43 at the plate and accounted for just four runs.
 
Game 1
The Mean Green beat Prairie View A&M 4-1 in game two of the Cowgirl Classic behind a pair of RBIs from Tayla Evans and strong pitching performances from Bailey Tindell and Ariel Thompson.
 
Tindell went five innings while only surrendering one run on two hits and tying her career high with four strikeouts to earn the win, Thompson threw two innings and struck out four to earn the save in her collegiate debut.
 
North Texas jumped out 1-0 in the second when Evans scampered home on a wild pitch and then the Sophomore would widen the gap with a two-run home run an inning later. The Panthers would respond an inning later with a run of their own to cut the Mean Green lead to one but an RBI double from Kenzie Young in the bottom half of the fourth would put North Texas ahead by three for good.
 
Game 2
Hope Trautwein showed exactly why the Conference USA coaches tabbed her as the league's preseason pitcher of the year against McNeese, but six Mean Green errors would ultimately do them in as the Cowgirls won 7-0.
 
Trautwein was simply dominant against McNeese, the sophomore threw 5.1 innings, surrendered zero hits, one earned run and struck out 10 hitters. She went a stretch of nine straight retired hitters and struck out seven hitters the first time through McNeese's lineup.
 
Neither team mustered any sort of offense through the first 4.5 innings of the contest. McNeese would break the scoreless tie in the fifth when a passed ball would allow the first run to come home then the sixth inning would see the wheels come off for North Texas.
 
The Cowgirls pushed six runs across the plate on five hits and four North Texas errors, that would be enough to put an end to the game.
 
The Mean Green will be back in action tomorrow as they head to Lafayette, Louisiana to take on Arkansas-Pine Bluff and No. 10 Louisiana.