By: KSU Sports Information
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Inside Owls Softball
Weekly Release
KENNESAW, Ga. – A big weekend of Atlantic Sun Conference softball is set to descend upon Bailey Park, as the first place Kennesaw State Owls host a pair of doubleheaders, beginning with the Lipscomb Bisons on Friday at 4 p.m. before welcoming the Belmont Bruins on Saturday at 1 p.m.
The Owls (25-20, 9-3 A-Sun) have won three straight league games, and enter the weekend tied at the top of the Atlantic Sun Conference standings with Florida Gulf Coast, who needed consecutive walk-off hits to sweep Jacksonville on Tuesday night to pull into a tie at the top. Seeding for the A-Sun Tournament, which will be held, May 10-12 in Spartanburg, S.C., will begin to really come into play this weekend, as 10 teams are battling for six spots in the event. The Owls and FGCU are tied in the loss column with USC Upstate, who are 7-3, while North Florida (7-7), Jacksonville (7-7), Stetson (6-6) and Lipscomb (27-13, 5-5 A-Sun) all sit in a tie for fourth. Mercer is right behind that group at 5-7 in league play.
Come This Weekend For Softball Bingo and Tattoos: All fans at the game on Friday are invited to take part in softball bingo, where they can compete for free food and prizes. The first 500 fans to attend Saturday’s game will receive a free Owls temporary tattoo. In addition, all youth softball players who arrive at Bailey Park in their uniform will receive free admission, with accompanying parents getting in for three dollars. Tickets to this weekend’s games are six dollars for adults and four dollars for youth in eighth grade or younger. Admission for all Owls home athletic events are free for KSU students when they present a valid student ID.
Listen Live: Fans can listen to all of the action this weekend live, free-of-charge, on KSU All Access, available at
www.KSUOwls.com/Showcase.
Fresh Legs For the Owls This Weekend: When the Black and Gold take the field on Friday afternoon, they will be ending a stretch of five straight days without a game, their longest such break since Mar. 11-17, when they returned from their week-long trip to Florida.
Owls Keep Pace in the A-Sun With Sweep of Stetson: The Owls were able to keep pace in the ultra-tight Atlantic Sun Conference race last weekend, thanks to timely hitting and solid pitching in their road sweep of Stetson last Saturday, taking the contests by scores of 5-1 and 8-1. The broke a 1-1 tie with four runs in the seventh inning of the opener, mainly on the strength of a three-run home run by freshman Kaylee Williams, and piled it on in the second game, scoring four runs in the fifth inning and then two each in the sixth and seventh to run away from the Hatters and secure the sweep. Amanda Henderson struck out nine in a complete game win in the second game, while she combined with Abbey Mixon and Jessica Cross to keep the home team at bay in the opener.
All-Time vs. Lipscomb: Lipscomb Leads, 7-6; Owls are 3-3 vs. Bisons at Bailey Park
Last Time: The Owls had just eight hits across two games, and dropped a pair at Lipscomb on Apr. 21, 2-0 and 1-0, despite getting back-to-back strong pitching performances from Jessica Cross and Amanda Henderson. Henderson struck out eight over six innings, while Cross also went six frames, allowing just two runs on four hits.
All-Time Meetings:
4/21/11- L, 0-2; L, 0-1 (Nashville, Tenn.)
5/14/10- L, 0-8 (DeLand, Fla.- A-Sun Tournament)
4/10/10- L, 1-6; W, 5-3 (Kennesaw, Ga.)
4/18/09- W, 3-1; L, 7-10 (Nashville, Tenn.)
4/11/08- L, 0-4; L, 0-4 (Kennesaw, Ga.)
4/15/07- W, 4-2; W, 8-2 (Nashville, Tenn.)
4/20/06- W, 5-1; W, 5-0 (Kennesaw, Ga.)
About Lipscomb: The Bisons (27-13, 5-5 A-Sun) have been somewhat of an enigma this season, and pose a much more dangerous threat to the opposition than their .500 conference record may suggest. Four of their five defeats to conference foes this season have been by one run, with the other being a, 5-3, setback to Stetson on Apr. 7 They have won four straight games coming into Friday evening, most recently sweeping cross-town rival Belmont, 1-0 and 9-0, on the road last Saturday. In the pitcher’s circle, senior Whitney Kiihnl is the undisputed anchor, as the 2010 A-Sun Player of the Year and Third Team All-American heads into Friday second in the A-Sun in ERA (1.42), Wins (19) and strikeouts (180). At the plate, junior Kelsey Cartwright does the most damage, sporting a .352 batting average to go along with 11 home runs and 29 RBI.
All-Time vs. Belmont: Owls Leads, 8-4; Owls are 4-0 vs. Bruins at Bailey Park
All-Time Meetings:
4/22/11- W, 9-0; W, 6-0 (Nashville, Tenn.)
4/9/10- W, 7-5; W, 2-0 (Kennesaw, Ga.)
4/17/09- L, 0-1; L, 0-1 (Nashville, Tenn.)
4/12/08- W, 1-0; W, 8-0 (Kennesaw, Ga.)
4/13/07- W, 7-5; L, 4-6 (Nashville, Tenn.)
4/22/06- L, 0-2; W, 6-5 (Nashville, Tenn.)
Last Time: The Owls combined for 27 hits in their dominating sweep of Belmont, with Jessica Cross stealing the show in the opener, bashing two home runs while also coming within three outs of a perfect game in the circle before allowing a bloop base hit to lead-off the sixth inning. Brittany Moore and Sara Sikes each had three hits in the second game to pace the Owls offense, while Abbey Mixon struck out seven in a complete game, three-hit shutout.
About Belmont: The Bruins (9-30, 3-7 A-Sun) have been a sneaky opponent for their adversaries in the A-Sun this season, having notched a couple of big victories in conference play that have thrown a pair of potential title contenders for a loop. They kicked off their A-Sun slate with a, 4-3, win over Jacksonville in the opener of a doubleheader, and showed more flashes of brilliance with a home doubleheader sweep of Stetson on Apr. 6, before having dropped their last four A-Sun contests. They most recently split a doubleheader with cross-town rival Tennessee State on Wednesday. It has been their pitching that has sunk them, as they enter Friday with a league-high 6.15 Earned Run Average. Senior infielder Ashley Byers has proven to be one of the more dangerous bats in the league this season, entering the weekend with a .351 batting average that ranks her eighth in the A-Sun, while having mashed seven home runs and notching 22 RBI.
Kennesaw State Continues National Ascent: Kennesaw State is ranked No. 83 in the NCAA’s latest RPI rankings, which were released on Monday. They have now improved their national standing for four straight weeks, as they were 85 on Apr. 10, 104 in Apr. 3, and were 117 in the first rankings released on Mar. 26.
No Doubting Durant: Owls sophomore Bianca Durant has been on a tear as a of late, having hit safely in seven of the last eight games, five of those being of the multi-hit variety. Her hits couldn’t have come at a better time last weekend, as she knocked in the tying run in both games at Stetson, first with a one-out single in the fifth inning of the opener and then with a line-drive that carried over the centerfield fence in the second game, again in the fifth inning. Her home run in the latter contest sparked a four-run frame for the Owls.
Kaylee Likes Conference Play: Owls freshman Kaylee Williams has come up with some monster hits during the A-Sun slate, and enters Friday leading the squad with 16 RBI in conference play. She had a pair of bases-clearing triples in the Owls sweep of North Florida on Apr. 6, totaling eight RBI in that twin bill, and dealt what would be the decisive blow in the opener at Stetson last Saturday, a three-run blast in the seventh inning that would propel the Owls to a, 5-1, win.
History For Jessica: When Owls senior Jessica Cross pitched in the opener on Saturday at Stetson, it was her 106
th career pitching appearance, breaking the Owls Division I program record that she had shared with Brittany Matthews. She is fifth on the program’s all-time list.
It’s Home From Here: The final six games of the Owls A-Sun schedule will be played at home, with this weekend’s four games being followed up by a home twin bill against Mercer next Saturday. Sandwiched in between will be a single game on Wednesday at No. 12-ranked Georgia.
Big Hits, and Error-Free: While the Owls hit well last Saturday on their way to sweeping Stetson, they also went the entire doubleheader without committing a single error, the second straight weekend in which they have done that. They also went error-free in their sweep of North Florida on Apr. 6.
