Live Stats (G1) |
Live Stats (G2)
ABILENE - Abilene Christian's softball team will play its first home games in over a month Tuesday when it welcomes eight-time NAIA champions Oklahoma City for a 5 p.m. doubleheader at Poly Wells Field.
Live stats will be made available for both games.
The 25-1 Stars are nationally ranked third in NAIA and come to the Key City riding an impressive 21-game winning streak. In fact, the Stars first and only loss came on Feb. 15 after dropping an 8.0-inning decision at Our Lady of the Lake, 5-4.
OKC is hitting .363 as a team with three everyday starters batting well above .400 - Jocelin Diaz (.476), Kyndra Holasek (.440) and Amanda Ingram (.412). The team also boasts a four-woman pitching staff that has posted a 1.09 earned-run average, tossed nine shutouts and held opposing batters to a .183 average.
Junior Maria Gomez leads the Stars' staff with an 11-0 record.
The Wildcats, meanwhile, are coming off their best all-around week of the season after taking three of four at Prairie View A&M. ACU's offense outscored the Lady Panthers, 40-16, and ripped 61 base hits that lifted its team batting average to a Southland Conference best .336, which is 33 points higher than second-place Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (.303).
Of the six Wildcats who appeared in all four games, five hit better than .300, while three hit .500 or above, including senior
Lyndi Smith, who belted her 30th career home run. Freshman
Taylor Brown hit a whopping .750 (9-for-12) and stole six bases, but even her performance paled in comparison to senior
Ashley Nolan, who smacked 12 hits in 14 at-bats for an .857 batting average. Nolan's final line also included four runs, three extra-base hits, two walks, two stolen bases and a sacrifice fly.
Nolan's slugging percentage against the Lady Panthers was a staggering 1.143, while her on-base percentage came in at .824.
ACU's pitchers once again were led by freshman
Hannah Null, who won her fifth and sixth games of the season after tossing a pair of complete games at Prairie View. Null's 10 strikeouts in the series opener tied her single-game career high as she tossed her third shutout in 11 starts, and her eight strikeouts in game three lifted her season total to 84.
Null's strikeout total ranks fourth in the Southland, while her 2.64 ERA is the fifth lowest. Null also is ranked among the league's top-10 performers with six wins, 77.0 innings pitched, three shutouts, seven complete games and a .253 opponents' batting average.
Last week's offensive totals pushed Smith onto the league leaders' lists for home runs (6), RBI (23), slugging percentage (.658) and total bases (50), while Brown moved into a tie for fourth with seven stolen bases.
Smith's next run will be the 100th of her four-year career as a Wildcat.
