No. 13 Kentucky Hosts Midweeks Against NKU, Murray State
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky’s best start to a
season in program history continues at John Cropp Stadium on Tuesday and
Wednesday as the Wildcats welcome in the Northern Kentucky Norse for a Tuesday game
at 5 p.m. ET before a Wednesday game with the Murray State Racers at 5 p.m. ET.
Both Tuesday and Wednesday’s games will be live on the SEC Network+ and the
WatchESPN app with Dave Baker, Carol Bruggeman and Dorian Craft calling the
action.
UK will be playing five games over the course
of the next six days, as the Wildcats will hit the road to Arkansas for a
three-game SEC weekend series beginning on Friday spanning through Sunday
afternoon in Fayetteville.
Kentucky is out to a 25-4 start to the season,
and 5-1 in the SEC – sitting tied with No. 1 Florida atop the SEC standings
through two weeks of conference action. UK has five SEC wins – matching its
conference win total from all of 2015, a year in which the Wildcats made the
Super Regionals for the fourth time in the last five years. Kentucky’s 25-4 overall record is the best in
program history through 29 games in a season.
UK swept South Carolina in Columbia to open up
conference play and took two out of three from Ole Miss this past weekend. Last
weekend’s sweep was the first sweep of an SEC opponent since Kentucky swept Ole
Miss in 2014 in Oxford. UK won one SEC series in the entirety of 2015 and
already has matched its league win total from 2015, on a team that advanced to
the NCAA Super Regionals with five league wins. UK went 5-19 in SEC play a
season ago and is already 5-1 to start SEC play in 2016.
UK has outscored its opponents 45-9 in the
first inning of games this season, and 21-1 in the second inning of games.
That’s a total of 66-10 in the first two innings of scoring in favor of
Kentucky this season. The Wildcats are 16-0 when they score in the first inning
this season and 21-0 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 five of the six SEC games it has played, with the eventual
game-winning run crossing the plate in all five of those instances.
The NKU Norse enter this week’s contest with a
7-17 overall record on the season, and have yet to open up conference action
this season. The Norse also competed at the 2016 Frost Classic in Chattanooga with
Kentucky, going 0-5 down in the Volunteer state with losses to Lipscomb, Miami
(OH), Chattanooga, Evansville and Eastern Illinois. The most recent game that
NKU played was on Sunday. NKU dropped a 7-0 decision to the Memphis Tigers.
The Murray State Racers enter Wednesday’s
contest with a 10-13 overall record on the season, and a 1-2 record inside Ohio
Valley Conference action. The Racers are coming off a three-game conference
series over the weekend against SEMO, in which MSU won the Friday night game,
before losing the next two to drop the conference-opening series. Murray has
played two common opponents with the Wildcats so far, with a 1-3 record in
those four games played. Murray dropped two games to Indiana, which Kentucky
beat – and split with Evansville – whom Kentucky beat at the Frost Classic.
Gameday Information
John Cropp Stadium
Gameday Webpage
Parking
Free game day parking is available the upper
and lower paved parking lots adjacent to John Cropp Stadium. In the event
that those lots fill spectators will be directed to park in the grass lot near
College Way and Wildcat Court.
Tickets
Tickets for Softball are sold through the UK Ticket
Office. For information about hosting Birthday Parties at John Cropp
Stadium please contact (859) 257.1818. The Ticket Office and stadium gates will
open 1 hour prior to first pitch.
Seating
All seating in John Cropp Stadium is general
admission and is first-come, first served.
Facility Address
John Cropp Stadium
570 Wildcat Court
Lexington, KY 40506
WatchESPN
Fans can watch the games on WatchESPN.
For the latest on the Kentucky softball team, follow @UKSoftball on Twitter, Instagram
and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
