Louisiana College Lady Wildcats softball (16-13, 14-7) will host conference rival and nationally ranked East Texas Baptist (24-6, 17-3) in an important three game series this weekend in Pineville. Game one of the series will be Friday at 6pm, and then a double-header scheduled for Saturday with game one at 12pm and the series finale at 2pm.
The Lady Wildcats are coming off a week where they went 0-5, including two 1-run losses to Mary Hardin-Baylor and two losses by 3 runs apiece. Even with the close losses over Spring Break Coach Bankston was still pleased with the way the team played. "We had a great weekend hitting, defensively we made probably one error in five games, and our pitching is always giving us the opportunity to win the game. Out of the five games we out hit our opponent in three of them and the other two games we were within one hit of them. We just got to keep hitting the ball and the probabilities going to catch up with us, those balls are going to start falling where we need them to fall."
LC currently sits at number 3 in the conference standings with only 9 games remaining on the season. The Lady Wildcats have three series left with the three other teams in the top four of the conference. This weekend's opponent ETBU sits at number 2 in the conference and ranked #11 in the country, next weekend the team will travel to Tyler, TX to take on the #1 team in the country and leader of the conference, UT-Tyler, before finishing the season with UT-Dallas who sits at fourth in the ASC just 3 games back of the Wildcats.
"We've got a lot of competitors on this team and they're looking forward to the challenge. It's always exciting to play the #11 ranked team in the country and then turn around and play the #1 team in the country. Coach Wieligman at UT-Dallas has done a great job bringing that program up a notch and we're going to enjoy these next 9 games."
Savannah Settle and Darian Thacker will continue to be the pitchers that the Wildcats lean on the most to provide them the opportunity to win the games. Both pitchers have ERA's under 2.00 for the season and will continue to rely on the solid defensive play behind them to keep the Tigers at bay.
The Wildcats had three players (Mattie Stine, Jessica Johnson, and Jordan Mason) with 6 or more hits last week. Stine still leads the team in most offensive categories including a .425 batting average, 37 hits, and 11 RBI.
ETBU and Louisiana College play at Coca-Cola Field this weekend. The series opens with a 6 p.m. game on Friday, and finishes with a Saturday doubleheader scheduled for noontime.
