ABILENE - Abilene Christian's season long 18-game road trip will reach its conclusion this week with a four-game series against the Panthers of Prairie View A&M. The two schools will play a pair of doubleheaders Tuesday at 2 p.m. and Wednesday at noon.
Prairie View - which competes in the 10-team Southwestern Athletic Conference - has only played seven games this spring and just recorded its first win last Friday in splitting a doubleheader at Incarnate Word. The Panthers won the first game of twin bill, 8-4, but lost the night cap, 9-3.
And prior to last weekend, the Panthers had not taken the field since the weekend of Feb. 21-23 when they and the Wildcats were part of the Texas Shootout hosted by North Texas. ACU blanked Prairie View there in the fifth-place game, 2-0, as freshman pitcher
Hannah Null tossed a five-hitter behind a season high 10 strikeouts.
Sophomore catcher
Cara Hoover played a role in both runs as she doubled in
Taylor Brown in the first inning, and scored an insurance run in the sixth on
Taylor Fitzgerald's double to right field.
Null continued to excel last weekend in Lubbock for the Texas Tech-hosted Jeannie McHaney Classic. After giving up two runs to Northern Colorado in her first relief appearance in two weeks, the rookie from Highland Village, Texas earned a complete-game victory over Texas-Arlington after holding the Mavericks to one run over 8.0 innings with five strikeouts.
Null begins the week ranked fifth in the Southland Conference with 66 strikeouts and 10th in ERA at 2.84.
At the plate, senior
Courtney Flanary led the ACU offense in Lubbock with a .400 batting average, which included a solo home run Sunday against Texas Tech. Senior
Lyndi Smith, meanwhile, hit .300 and drove in one of her two RBI in the victory vs. UT-Arlington.
Flanary's efforts raised her season batting average to a team best .328.
Through 19 games this spring ACU has the third highest batting in the 12-team Southland Conference at .304. Only Incarnate Word (.312) and A&M-Corpus Christi (.310) have hit better.
