ROCK HILL, SC—Winners of four of the last five, Winthrop softball looks to keep its momentum going as it heads north for a three-game series at Radford, beginning with a doubleheader on Saturday at 1 p.m.
It is an important series for the Eagles as they try and keep pace with the upper half of the Big South Conference standings. Winthrop is 19-22 overall and in sixth place in the standings with an 8-8 mark but just percentage points behind from Charleston Southern in third place at 9-6. Saturday's doubleheader will air on the Big South Network.
Winthrop has captured its series with Gardner-Webb and swept Campbell last weekend for its second series of the season. The third win over Campbell on Saturday gave head coach
Mark Cooke his 700
th victory at Winthrop, giving him 785 in his career.
On April 6, the Eagles entered were 1-8 in one-run games on the year, but three of the four wins last week by a single run. The Eagles got timely hitting and solid pitching to earn a 4-1 record on the week.
Senior
Kristy Noble had two pinch-hit RBI singles in the Campbell series as she reached 100 career hits. She is now 7-for-16 as a pinch-hitter with six RBI. Freshman
Jessica Roth had a big pinch-hit in the series finale against Campbell as she ripped a double down the line to score two runs in a four-run fifth inning in a 7-4 win.
Sophomore
Maddie Antone had a nine-game hitting streak come to an end in the Campbell series but she continues to lead the team in batting with a .383 average (ranks 7
th in the Big South). Anton has a team-high 31 runs and is second with 26 RBI. Antone is batting .370 with eight runs and six RBI in 10 league games.
Paige Haley is second on the team with a .311 average as she batted .375 with three runs and an RBI last week (five games).
One of the biggest improvements at the plate is freshman
K.J. Uyeno, who has increased her average to .293 on the year. She was batting .231 after the first game at Charleston Southern but improved the average by 62 points in the seven games since. Uyeno missed the first nine games of the season and leads the Eagles with 25 walks and has an on-base percentage of .506. In the last five games she's 5-for-12 (.417) with four runs and four RBI. She drove in the game-tying run in the bottom of the sixth inning of the first game against Campbell and followed that up with a game-winning two RBI single in the bottom of the seventh of game two.
In the five games last week the Eagle pitching staff mostly featured senior's
Sara Allen and
Sutton Watson, who combined to pitch 27.2 innings while junior
Dallas King was limited to 5.1 innings of work. Allen is 10-7 on the year with a 4.05 ERA and 80 strikeouts to 65 walks in 112.1 innings. Watson is 4-6 with a 3.98 ERA and 69 strikeouts to 24 walks and four save in 77.1 innings. King leads the team with a 3.09 ERA as she's 4-9 on the year with 62 strikeouts to 29 walks in 77 innings.
Kelsey Ritter continues to lead the team in RBI with 28. The senior third baseman hit her 20
th career homerun with a walk-off solo shot in the series opener vs. Campbell. She's batting .282 with 23 runs and tied for the team lead in doubles (9) in 40 games played this season.
Winthrop and Radford have met 71 times as the all-time series favors the Highlanders 41-30. Since 2009 the series has been dominated by the Highlanders having taken the regular season series with the Eagles the past six seasons. The Eagles are just 5-18 against Radford since taking a series in Radford in 2008. Last season the Highlanders took the series 2-1 as all three games were close and the run total favored Radford 20-18.
Radford is 10-25 overall and enters the series in seventh place in the Big South at 5-9. The Highlanders are coming off a non-conference doubleheader loss against Appalachian State on Thursday. Radford has lost five straight games since claiming a 4-1 victory in the series finale at Liberty to avoid a sweep.
Radford and Winthrop are at the bottom of the league in team batting with a .264 and .255 average respectively. Winthrop ranks 5
th in the league with a team ERA of 3.88, while Radford ranks 9
th at 6.37.
Offensively Becky Mantel is the top batter with a .337 average as she also leads the team in runs scored (21). She has 10 extra-base hits with five doubles and five home runs. Whitney Davis leads the team in RBI with 26 as she's second in batting with a .320 average and her seven home runs lead the team. Casey Burns is batting .273 with 18 runs and 16 RBI. Last season Burns was 5-for-9 with three runs, two home runs and seven RBI in the three games against Winthrop. Mantel was 4-for-11 with three runs, a home run and two RBI against the Eagles.
The innings are pretty balanced between four pitchers led by Kelsey Weddle's 68.2 Weddle is 2-8 on the year with a 6.01 ERA with the most appearances (24) and game started (13). Taylor Asimakopoulos and Tiffany Brown each have eight starts. Asimakopoulos leads the team with three wins as she's 3-4 with a 7.74 ERA. Brown is 2-8 with a 6.96 ERA and has tossed the second most innings with 59.1. Abby Morrow leads the team in ERA at 2.84 as she's 2-4 with nine appearances and four starts and has 23 strikeouts to six walks in 37 innings.
