March 15, 2002

LEXINGTON, Ky. –


Florida Series Notes in PDF Format

The University of Kentucky will play a doubleheader with the University of Florida on Saturday, March 16, to open up UK’s 2002 Southeastern Conference schedule. The first pitch is scheduled to be thrown at noon ET with the second game to start at 2 p.m. ET.

The Wildcats enter the weekend 14-9 and are coming off of a two-game series split with Ohio State on Tuesday at OSU’s Buckeye Field. Junior Nikki Jones, who is currently riding a 12-game hitting streak, leads the Cats offense with a .403 batting average while senior Beth Fogle is right behind her at .371. Freshman Meghan Cooper stands as the Cats top pitcher right now, sporting a 1.86 ERA in 72.2 innings pitched.

“We are really excited about opening up SEC play against a good Florida team,” UK Coach Beth Kirchner said. “If we can play with the aggressiveness that we have shown, this should turn out to be a good series.”

Florida enters the weekend series 12-17, 0-3 SEC and is 2-13 over its last 15, losing six straight including three consecutive during its SEC opener at LSU last weekend. Mandy Shuerman, who owns a .373 batting average with eight doubles leads Florida, which is 9-4 at home, offensively. Amanda Knowles is the Gator’s top hurler with a record of 5-4 and a 3.11 ERA while Shuerman also takes her turn in the circle, owning a 2-5 record and a 4.86 ERA.

The three-game series concludes on Sunday with a noon ET game. Follow all of the games live by logging onto www.gatorzone.com and linking to the softball page. The live stats link will be on the right side of the page.

-UK-