ACU at Northwestern State:
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ABILENE – Even though Abilene Christian softball is at the start of its fourth season of Southland Conference competition the Wildcats had to wait until this coming weekend for its first league series against Northwestern State. The two schools only have met once before – last season in San Marcos, Texas – but because of the Southland's three-year scheduling rotations, the Lady Demons and Wildcats had avoided each other in conference play until now.
Northwestern State is one of two new additions to ACU's Southland slate along with Nicholls, while McNeese and Lamar are expected to be off ACU's docket until 2020.
The Lady Demons were the league's regular-season champions as recently as 2015, posting a 22-3 record, but last year they fell to eighth after winning just 10 of 27 conference games. They are off to a uncharacteristic start again in 2017 at 9-16-1 and were swept last weekend in their conference-opening series vs. Lamar, falling by scores of 5-4, 5-1 and 3-2.
Northwestern State's offense is hitting .258 and slugging .398 to go with a .346 on-base percentage, and the five-woman pitching staff has a 0.94 K/BB ratio (112 / 119) and ERA of 4.73.
The Wildcats enter this weekend's series coming off a home sweep of Southeastern Louisiana as each of the three victories featured one big inning.
ACU won the first game, 3-2, on a walkoff sacrifice fly to left field off the bat of designated player
Tori Poullard, and in game two, the Wildcats scored all seven of their runs in the second inning. Saturday, the Wildcats trailed 5-2 heading into the sixth inning, where they scored 10 runs with two outs on five hits and four walks. The Wildcats' No. 6 to 9 batters all drew a free pass and the top of their order contributed two RBI singles, followed by back-to-back home runs by
Peyton Hedrick and
Brianna Barnhill.
Barnhill was ACU's leading hitter last weekend, going 4-for-9 (.444) with two home runs, double and two RBI. Hedrick, however, still leads the Wildcats in the Triple Crown categories, batting .347 with eight home runs and 24 RBI.Â
ACU's pitching duo of
Hannah Null and
Sidney Holman posted a 14.0 inning scoreless streak between the second innings of game one and game three to finish the weekend with a 2.33 ERA and .153 opponents' batting average. Holman appeared in all three games, picked up two wins and 10 Ks through 11.1 innings, while Null went 1-0 with 8Ks.
Holman currently is the league leader with 85.2 innings pitched and is second in the Southland with 79 Ks and eight wins. Both she and Null are ranked among the top five with opposing batting averages of .207 and .209, respectively.
