HUNTSVILLE, TX ? The Sam Houston State softball team opened its 2009 season with a pair of 8-0 run-rule victories over Houston Baptist and Texas Southern Saturday afternoon at Bearkat Softball Complex.

The Kats pounded out 12 hits in each game. Alex Survant, Mandy Gegen and Calli Wood each hit home runs for Sam Houston.

Bearkat pitchers Brandi Crnkovic and Morgan Mikulin earned the victories. Freshman Tomi Garrison pitched one inning in relief in the Texas Southern game.

Crnkovic held HBU to three hits, striking out five to become the all-time leader in career strike outs at Sam Houston State. The senior upped her career total to 430, passing Jennifer Delcambre who record 427 strike outs in 1992-95.

Mikulin and Garrison combined to no-hit the Tigers in a perfect game. Mikulin faced 12 batters while Garrison retired three.

"One of the things that we have improved upon this early in the season as compared to last year at this time is our offense," SHSU head coach Bob Brock said. "It was slower developing in that second game, but once we started hitting, we were really hitting. Our defense and pitching have been good the last two or three years and they looked pretty good today. What I like about today was we had two victories and everybody played."

The two games capped the first day of the Domino's Pizza/Sam Houston softball classic. HBU defeated Texas Southern 6-2 in the opening contest of the tournament Saturday morning.

Texas Southern and Houston Baptist will open Sunday's tournament play at 11 a.m. Sam Houston will meet Texas Southern at 2 p.m. and conclude the event with a 4:15 game against the Huskies.