Live StatsABILENE - Winners of five of its last six games, including its previous four Southland Conference Games, the Abilene Christian softball team has a chance to even its season record this weekend with a three-game series at Stephen F. Austin.
Games in Nacogdoches begin Saturday at 1 p.m. (DH) and Sunday at noon.
This is the first series between the Wildcats (15-18, 4-2 SLC) and Ladyjacks, however, the two sides met earlier this spring at the Texas Shootout, where SFA used a six-run fifth inning to beat ACU, 8-3. Elizabeth Arana and Brittany Lewis paced the Ladyjack offense with a combined six RBI and two home runs. Lewis also was credited with a complete game as she held the Wildcats to only one earned run despite surrendering 10 hits.
SFA (15-18, 6-5 SLC) has been scuffling through the last few weekends as its series win vs. Northwestern State was bookended by series defeats to Central Arkansas and Houston Baptist. And earlier this week, the Ladyjacks dropped a 5-4 decision at North Texas - a game in which Lewis hit a go-ahead, three-run home run in addition to giving up four earned runs over 3.1 innings pitched.
That outing raised SFA's season ERA to 4.35, which is the eighth highest of the league's 12 teams. But the Ladyjacks' ace, Carlie Thomas, has 10 wins and a 2.57 ERA to go along with 124 strikeouts that rank second in the Southland to ACU's freshman
Hannah Null (125).
At the plate, Stephen F. Austin's hitters have the 11th-ranked batting average of .255 even though Arana has scored 28 runs and Katelyn Standley has hit seven home runs and driven in 26.
As for the Wildcats, they're coming off a three-game sweep of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in which they beat the Islanders by scores of 5-0, 9-1 and 7-6. ACU led Corpus by five runs at the end of the fourth inning, but quickly lost that lead as the Islanders scored six times over the final three innings. Luckily for the Wildcats, Corpus' shortstop Valerie Perez made two throwing errors in the bottom of the eighth that directly led to the game-tying and go-ahead runs being scored.
Null was credited with the game three victory in relief of
Emily Seidel to finish 2-0 on the weekend, and she also struck out 10 Islanders through 7.0 innings in her game one start. Senior
Peyton Mosley pitched well in game two, striking out three in 5.0 innings, to win her fourth game in two weeks after starting the year at 0-7.
In addition to leading the league in Ks, Null is No. 4 in the Southland with a 2.55 ERA and tied for third with nine wins. She also is ranked among the conference leaders with 107 innings pitched, 20 appearances, 15 starts, four shutouts, 10 complete games and .237 opponents batting average.
ACU's offense out-hit the Islanders, .345 to .159, which lifted its conference-leading batting average to .324 that is 26 points higher than second-place Lamar (.298). Freshman
Kyla Simmons went 5-for-8 to lead the Wildcats last weekend with a .625 batting average and was one of three ACU players to drive in four runs along with freshman
Taylor Brown and sophomore
Paige Stevens.
Senior
Lyndi Smith drove in two runs on three hits vs. Corpus, keeping her among the league leaders in several categories, including hits (36), home runs (7), RBI (26) and total bases (63).
In going 5-for-9 vs. the Islanders with a double, triple and stolen base, Brown lifted her on-base percentage to .471, which is tied for third in the league, while her 13 stolen bases are second to Alanna DiVittio of McNeese State (21).
Stevens is fifth in the conference with her .459 on-base percentage.
