EDWARDSVILLE – Due to weather concerns, the SIUE softball three-game series against Eastern Illinois has been moved to a Friday-Saturday matchup at Cougar Field. Game times are now 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Friday with the final game set for 1 p.m. Saturday.
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Saturday serves as Senior Day for the Cougars. SIUE will honor seniors Kelsey Hansen, Rachel Keller, Jordan LaFave and Christian Harryman. It also will be Alumni Day at Cougar Field. For more information about Alumni Day events, contact SIUE Assistant Coach Brittini Merchant at bmercha@siue.edu.
With six games left in the Ohio Valley Conference regular season, every contest is an important one as teams look to qualify for the eight-team OVC Tournament at Choccolocco Park in Oxford, Alabama. The Cougars enter the series with a 21-20 record overall and a 13-7 mark in OVC play. Eastern Illinois is one-half game ahead of the Cougars for third place in the OVC standings at 13-6. The Panthers are 19-24 overall.
SIUE, which has a four-game winning streak after doubleheader sweeps on the road at Tennessee State and Belmont, scored 27 runs last weekend.
"It was nice to see that we had a lot of run production this past weekend," said SIUE Head Coach Sandy Montgomery.
SIUE's 13-4 win against Belmont was the most runs scored by the Cougars in league play and the most since throttling Valparaiso with 15 runs in early March. During the four games against Tennessee State and Belmont, six different players had four or more hits and eight players had at least three. SIUE hit .343 during that span.
"That was huge," said SIUE Head Coach Sandy Montgomery. "We're not just relying on one or two people to come up with key hits. When you do that, you're not going to score a lot of runs."
The Cougars face an Eastern Illinois squad with the fourth-best batting average during OVC play (.271) and the fourth-best team earned run average (2.61). April Markowski leads the offense with a .390 batting average in OVC play.
"The kids understand our strategies and the things we're trying to do," said Montgomery. "It's just a matter of executing them consistently."
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