University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Softball Continues Road Swing at UTSA
4/8/2016 12:00:00 AM | Softball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The Southern Miss softball team hits the road to San Antonio, Texas for a three-game Conference USA series with UTSA at Roadrunner Field. The series begins with a doubleheader on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. and concludes with a single game on Sunday slated for 1:00 p.m.
Live stats and in-game tweets (@SouthernMissSB) will be available throughout the weekend.
Southern Miss enters the weekend 18-21 overall, including a 5-7 mark in C-USA play. UTSA is 13-23 overall, but have a 7-5 record in the league.
The Golden Eagles and Roadrunners have met on the softball diamond 11 times with the Black and Gold holding an 8-3 overall advantage in the series.
The series dates back to 1999 when Southern Miss restarted the softball program. The two teams met five times prior to UTSA joining Conference USA in 2014 with all five meetings occurring at early season tournaments at neutral sites.
The Golden Eagles won the first six meetings of the series, but are 2-3 in the last five meetings.
Since the Roadrunners joined the league in 2014 the two teams are 3-3 against each other with all six contests taking place in Hattiesburg. The three-game weekend series marks the first time the two teams have met against each other in San Antonio.
Both teams enter the weekend on the heels of midweek games against Power 5 opponents. Southern Miss dropped a 5-0 decision on the road to No. 8 LSU on Wednesday, while UTSA fell 3-2 to in-state foe Texas.
Southern Miss has three players -- Sarah Evans (Livingston), Meredith Miller (Sugar Land), and Samantha Robles (Texas City) -- who call the Lone Star State home.
The Golden Eagles are led by junior transfer Tori Dew who boasts a .349 batting average. On the year, Dew is 38-for-109 with nine doubles and a pair of home runs. She has drawn 25 walks, which is just five free passes shy of entering the Southern Miss single-season top 10.
Fellow transfer Lauren Holifield has provided pop with the bat this season. The junior leads the team with seven home runs. Holifield is three home runs shy of becoming just the 11th player in school history with double digit homers in a season. Jill Mathis (2010-11) was the last Golden Eagle to accomplish the feat, recording 10 dingers in 2011.
For the second consecutive season, Katie Cleary is leading the team in RBI. The senior has 25 this season to pace the team -- just ahead of Holifield (24). Last season, Cleary finished with 36 runs batted in, closing out the year just five shy of entering the Southern Miss season top 10. Last weekend, the senior used a three-run home run to move her RBI total into the USM career top 10. Cleary is six back of tying for ninth and 12 RBI shy of becoming the eighth player in program history with 100 runs batted in.
In the circle, Robles leads the team in earned run average, wins, and innings pitched. Sophomore Jillian Johnson used a stretch of 22.2 innings without an earned run to drop her ERA 3.75 points to move into second place on the team in the category.
