Game Notes
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Coming off a two-game sweep against Saint Louis in Thursday’s non-conference doubleheader, the University of Evansville softball will travel to Omaha, Neb., to resume Missouri Valley Conference play with a three-game series against Creighton. The Aces will face the Blue Jays in a doubleheader Saturday at noon before finishing the weekend with a single game at noon on Sunday.
The Aces (13-18) currently stand in eighth place in the conference with a Valley record of 4-13. With three weeks left of MVC play and only the top-eight teams receiving bids to the Valley Tournament, this weekend’s series against the third place Blue Jays could prove critical for the Aces’ post-season fate.
Evansville is hoping to ride the momentum of Thursday’s wins against the Billikens into the weekend series. Sophomore
Katie Sears extended her hitting streak to five-games, notching a triple in each of tonight’s games as she ended 2-for-7 at the plate with two RBI and one run scored. Freshman
Victoria Dellorto and senior
Maggie Little also ended the night with a pair of hits.
Junior
Sarah Patterson and sophomore
Taylor Perry each picked up a win in the circle for UE. Patterson went the distance in game one, giving up three runs on six hits while picking up four strikeouts in her twentieth start of the season. Perry improved to 4-6 on the season as she pitched seven innings of four-hit ball, giving up two unearned runs while fanning four Billiken batters.
Catch The Action
Scouting the Blue Jays
Creighton University Blue Jays (21-19, 10-6)
Creighton enters this weekend as the third place team in the Missouri Valley Conference, posting a 10-6 record in Valley play so far. The Blue Jays are most recently coming off a 1-1 split in their midweek Valley matchup against Drake. Creighton posted a 5-2 victory in game one of the doubleheader before dropping the night cap 2-0 to the Bulldogs.
Hitting:
The Blue Jays are hitting .293 as a team with six batters hitting over .300 on the year. Amy Baker leads the team with a .363 average at the plate with 42 RBI as the team’s leading run producer. Batting .344, Alexis Cantu has tallied 12 of Creighton’s 41 team home runs and leads the Valley with a .774 slugging percentage.
Pitching:
Five Creighton pitchers have seen action in the center circle this year, but the Blue Jays have relied heavily on Becca Changstrom, who holds a 2.46 ERA with 126 in 128.0 innings pitched. Sammy Snygg and Cantu are also likely to see time on the mound. The two are nearly identical in statistics, as Snygg has posted a 4.48 ERA with 40 strikeouts in 50 innings while Cantu owns a 4.78 ERA with 38 strikeouts in 52.2 innings of work.
