No. 12 Kentucky Travels to Athens for Doubleheader
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Fresh off a weekend sweep on
the road in Southeastern Conference play at Arkansas, the No. 12 Kentucky
softball team will put its perfect 12-0 road record on the line as it travels
north to Athens, Ohio for a midweek doubleheader with the Ohio Bobcats on
Tuesday afternoon beginning at 3 p.m. ET.
Kentucky sits at 30-4 overall and 8-1 in the
SEC, tied with the No. 1 Florida Gators atop the SEC standings through the
first three weekends of conference action. The Wildcats also sport a top-10 RPI
through the first seven weeks of the season, slotting in at No. 7 nationally in
the computers.
Ohio is 19-9 om the season, and 2-1 in
Mid-American Conference play. The Bobcats this weekend took two of three from
Western Michigan, with wins on Friday and Sunday in Athens. In common
opponents, Ohio split a doubleheader with Marshall, beat Evansville and
Indiana, and split with Texas Tech. The Bobcats also beat Winthrop, 5-1.
UK and Ohio will be playing each other for the
third time in as many seasons consecutively. The Wildcats and Bobcats met in
the 2014 NCAA Lexington Regional opening game, with UK winning that game 2-0,
before a three-game sweep of OU last season at John Cropp Stadium in mid-March.
Kentucky is 9-1 all-time against the Bobcats, with the only UK loss coming in
the series debut in 1998 in Athens, 5-4 in extra innings.
Kentucky has played 12 true road games thus
far into the season, and is a perfect 12-0 in those games, including a win over
No. 22 Arizona State. The nine road games are the most by any SEC team, with
Alabama’s five (4-1) the next closest. The Wildcats have swept two SEC road
series (at Arkansas, at South Carolina) for the first time in program history.
UK has outscored its opponents 46-13 in the
first inning of games this season, and 30-2 in the second inning of games.
That’s a total of 76-15 in the first two innings of scoring in favor of
Kentucky this season. The Wildcats are 18-0 when they score in the first inning
this season and 25-0 when they score first. The Wildcats scored a run in the
first inning in all three of its wins at South Carolina on SEC Opening Weekend
and have scored first in nine of the six SEC games it has played, with the eventual
game-winning run crossing the plate in all five of those instances.
UK’s 30-4 start is the best in program history
through 34 games. The previous best was 26-5 in 2014, Kentucky’s only appearance
in the Women’s College World Series.
For the latest on the Kentucky softball team, follow @UKSoftball on Twitter, Instagram
and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
