Softball | 4/14/2016 11:37:00 AM
Live Stats (G1, G2, G3) | Video ABILENE – Abilene Christian softball lost Tuesday's Hardin-Simmons doubleheader to rain and hopes that won't be the case again this weekend when the Wildcats visit Nacogdoches, Texas and Stephen F. Austin for a three-game Southland Conference series.
A 50-percent chance of rain Saturday prompted the two teams to adjust their schedules, and for now the Wildcats and Ladyjacks are slated to play a 2 p.m. doubleheader Friday followed by a 1 p.m. game Saturday.
ACU enters this series at 16-17 overall and 10-5 vs. the Southland following last weekend's home sweep of Incarnate Word, which put the fourth-place Wildcats 2.5 games ahead of sixth-place SFA (18-20, 7-7 Southland).
Sophomores
Peyton Hedrick and
Hannah Null were honorable mentions for Southland Conference Hitter and Pitcher of the Week for their contributions vs. the Cardinals. Hedrick batted .600 to lift her team-leading batting average to .330 as she drove in six runs on a double, home run and four singles.
Null appeared in all three games and came away with two victories and a save. She also posted a 1.02 ERA and struck out 10 batters through 13.2 innings of work. Null currently ranks fifth in the Southland with 81Ks, while another solid outing from junior
Casey-May Huff lowered her season ERA to 2.14, which ranks fourth in the league.
ACU batted .347 as a team vs. UIW pitching. Senior
Demi McNulty hit .571 (4-for-7) out of the No. 9 hole.
Miranda Herron and
Taylor Brown each collected three hits, and
Brianna Barnhill hit two home runs to lift her season total to six.
Hedrick leads the Wildcats with eight home runs, which is good for fifth in the Southland.
The Ladyjacks are coming off a series loss at Houston Baptist and avoided the sweep with a 6-1 win last Saturday. Earlier this week they picked up a 7-2 win vs. Prairie View.
Prior to playing the Huskies, SFA split a rain-shortened two-game series with Nicholls before losing two of three to Central Arkansas. They rebounded the next two weeks, however, with consecutive series victories over Southeastern and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
As a team, SFA owns the No. 10 batting average in the conference at .257 but its pitching is right in the middle with a 3.31 ERA. By comparison, ACU ranks eighth in each category, hitting .264 while allowing 3.65 earned runs per game.
The Ladyjacks are led in the circle by pitcher Callee Guffey (2.37 ERA) and at the plate by Brittany Lewis (.634 slugging, 7 HR, 35 RBI).
ACU is 1-5 all-time vs. SFA. The Wildcats were swept at home by the Ladyjacks in three slugfests, 12-4, 14-13 and 14-7, and the year prior they lost two of three games on the road with the lone victory coming in 10 innings.
