ABILENE - Abilene Christian's softball team continues a season-long six-game series with the Bearkats of Sam Houston State this weekend in Huntsville, Texas. The new Southland Conference rivals will play a doubleheader Friday at 4 p.m. followed by a single game Saturday at noon.
The Wildcats enter this series with an overall record of 17-22, with three of those losses coming against the Bearkats at neutral sites. Sam Houston first bested ACU at the Texas Shootout in Denton, 6-1, on Feb. 22, before beating the Wildcats twice more in Lubbock during the Texas Tech Invitational.
In conference play, however, the Wildcats have been quite competitive as they are just one of four Southland teams with an above .500 record along with McNeese State (13-4), Lamar (12-5) and the Bearkats (11-6). ACU doesn't have the Cowgirls on this year's schedule, and just last weekend the Wildcats gave Lamar all it could handle in three close games played at Poly Wells Field.
ACU split last Saturday's doubleheader with the Cardinals and on Sunday had a couple of unfortunate innings in dropping the rubber game of the series, 10-7, despite receiving home runs from seniors
Courtney Flanary and
Lyndi Smith.
In the series' second game, the Wildcats pulled off a wild 3-2 comeback victory that ended on pinch hitter Cara Hoovers' walkoff two-run double to left field.
As for the Bearkats, they come into this series at 22-19 overall after winning 10 of their last 14 games dating back to March 22. Sam Houston took two of three from Nicholls that weekend before splitting a midweek doubleheader against Baylor. The Bearkats then won seven straight against Lamar, Northwestern State and Houston Baptist before dropping the finals game of their series against the Huskies, 3-2.
Earlier this week, the Bearkats were humbled by No. 21 Texas A&M, 11-2, but they still have the second-lowest earned run-average in the Southland Conference at 3.77 led by the duo of Shelby Lancaster (3.20), Haley Baros (3.49).
Baros has three saves to go along with 13 starts and a team-high 36 strikeouts.
The Sam Houston State offense is batting .285 as a team, and much like Lamar, is very aggressive around the basepaths as evident by their 56 stolen bases on 76 attempts.
Cecilia Castillo has the Bearkats' highest batting average of .358 and is one of five Sam Houston players with 20 or more RBI. Tiffany Castillo is the team leader with 28 RBI and shares the team lead in home runs with Hillary Adams with eight, while Tayler Gray and Sarah Allison are each one behind with seven.
Abilene Christian's offense still has the highest batting average in the Southland at .309, which is 11 points higher than second-place Northwestern State (.298). Veterans such as Smith (.333), Flanary (.304) and
Madison Buckley (.303) all have hovered around the .300 mark all season, while top of the order options -
Taylor Brown and
Paige Stevens - have given the Wildcats very high batting averages and on-base percentages.
Stevens ranks ninth in the Southland Conference with a .389 batting average and is getting on base at a .456 clip, while Brown is batting .382 with six extra-base hits, 13 stolen bases and a .417 on-base percentage.
Smith hit two home runs last weekend against the Cardinals to raise her season total to nine, which ranks fourth in the conference. She also moved into fourth in RBI with 36.
Freshman
Hannah Null experienced some hard-luck innings vs. Lamar, but still emerged with the league's fifth-lowest ERA at 2.65 as a majority of the runs she allowed were unearned. Null also begins this week ranked fourth in the league with 143 strikeouts, second with 11 wins and fifth with 12 complete games.
