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KENNESAW, Ga. – The Kennesaw State softball team is set to enter the 2013 Atlantic Sun Conference Championship as the No. 5 seed and will face off against tournament host and No. 4 seed Lipscomb on Wednesday, May 8 at 6:30 p.m. (ET) at Draper Diamond in Nashville, Tenn., in the second game of the Championships.
The winner of Wednesday’s game will play A-Sun regular season champion and No. 1 seed North Florida on Thursday, May 9 at 1:30 p.m.
Live stats and video will be available on KSUOwls.com for Wednesday’s game. Fans can also follow the action by following Kennesaw State softball on Twitter, @
KSUOwlsSoftball.
Kennesaw State (34-18, 16-10) ended the regular season on a high note, winning seven of its final eight games, including winning its final five conference games. Senior
Sharon Swanson (Canton, Ga./Cherokee HS) and Amanda Henderson (Covington, Ga./Eastside HS) both garnered A-Sun All-Conference accolades the conference announced on Tuesday.
Swanson earned her third-straight A-Sun All-Conference First-Team honor after being named to the first-team following her sophomore and junior seasons. Swanson has led the Owls offensively throughout the entire season, posting a team-leading .354 batting average, which also ranked eighth in the conference, as well as leading KSU in hits (57), runs (22), RBI (34), home runs (10), total bases (94), slugging percentage (.584), on-base percentage (.395) and sacrifice flies (three).
Henderson, who garnered A-Sun All-Conference First-Team accolades a season ago, has been the ace of the KSU pitching staff and has collected three A-Sun Pitcher of the Week honors in 2013. Henderson is 18-4 on the season, with an ERA of 1.75 in 164.1 innings. She has totaled 14 complete games, six shutouts and four saves. The junior has given up only 41 earned runs, while striking out 193 batters, which ranks first in the A-Sun.
The Owls lead the all-time series against Lipscomb, 10-8, including taking the regular season series against the Bison earlier this season with wins in the first and third games of the series. The two programs have faced each other twice in the A-Sun Championship in the past three years with each winning one game.
Lipscomb (32-22, 18-8) comes into Wednesday’s game after finishing the regular season by winning 10 of its last 11 conference games. The Bison are led by Brittany Elmore with a .342 average and leads the conference with 33 stolen bases. In the circle, Heather Parker owns a 14-11 record with a 2.11 ERA in 175.2 innings.
The first game of the tournament will pit third-seeded Florida Gulf Coast against sixth-seeded Stetson at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Second-seeded USC Upstate will face the winner of FGCU and Stetson at 11 a.m. on Thursday.
Keep up with Owls softball this year by following KSU on Twitter at @
KSUOwlNation and @
KSUOwlsSoftball, or by liking Kennesaw State Owls on
Facebook.
Kennesaw State is celebrating 30 years of intercollegiate athletics during the 2012-13 academic year.
