• Game Notes
EVANSVILLE, Ind.— After notching its first win in Missouri Valley Conference play with Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Missouri State, the University of Evansville softball team (8-18) will travel to Columbia, Mo., for a pair of non-conference games against the No. 12 University of Missouri Tigers on Wednesday (as ranked by the NFCA/USA Today Coaches Poll). The doubleheader is slated to begin at 3:00 p.m.
Evansville enters the week hitting .266 as a team, led by freshman
Kayla Fortner, who is batting .442 and leads the Aces with 34 hits and 22 runs batted in so far. Senior shortstop
Amy Gaertner is hitting .345 on the year, as she has returned to the field after being sidelined for eight games due to a cleat-meets-leg collision on March 14. Gaertner made an immediate impact on the Aces’ lineup, hitting .444 against Missouri State with a perfect 3-for-3 effort at the plate in Sunday’s win over the Bears.
UE’s pitching staff takes a 4.29 ERA into the midweek doubleheader with an opposing batting average of .277. Sophomore
Taylor Perry leads the team, posting an ERA of 3.89 and collecting 26 strikeouts in 45.0 innings of work. Junior
Sarah Patterson currently ranks eighth in the MVC with 57 strikeouts so far.
Game Coverage
Scouting the Tigers
Missouri University Tigers (23-5, 3-2 Big 12 Conference)
The Tigers enter the midweek matchup ranked No. 12 in the nation after posting a 23-5 overall record in the first half of the season. The Tigers are most recently coming off a 1-2 weekend, picking up two of their five losses against Texas A&M in Big 12 action. The losses snapped a 17-game winning streak, as the Tigers had not lost a game since a 7-1 loss to Northwestern on February 26.
Hitting:
The Tigers are hitting .299 as a team with six batters batting over .300. Ashley Fleming leads Mizzou’s offense, hitting .370 on the season with a team-high six home runs and 21 RBI. Kelsea Roth owns the best batting average on the team at .375 and leads the Tigers with seven doubles and 17 walks.
Pitching:
2011 Big 12 Pitcher of the Year, Chelsea Thomas, leads the Tigers in the circle, posting the sixth-best ERA in Division I at 0.71 in 78.2 innings pitched. Thomas leads the nation in hits per game, allowing just 2.67 hits while striking out an average of 9.3 batters per seven-inning game. Kristin Nottelmann has also seen significant time in the circle, bringing in a 1.74 ERA with 61 strikeouts in 60.1 innings of work this season.
