The Kentucky softball team returns to action with a mid-week Southeastern Conference series against No. 2 Tennessee at the UK Softball Complex. The three-game set kicks off with a doubleheader on Wednesday, Mar. 29, beginning at 3 p.m. The series finale will be played at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Mar. 30.
The Wildcats and Lady Vols will meet for the 27th time in school history when they face off this week. UT holds a 19-7 lead in the all-time series after taking two games to win the series last year. The Wildcats won the second game of the series with a 2-1 extra-inning win in Knoxville when Brooke Marnitz homered off Monica Abbott in the eighth.
The Lady Vols are currently third in the SEC Eastern Division with a 27-4 overall record and a 2-4 mark in league play. UT dropped three games last weekend at No. 6 Alabama and bring a three-game losing skid to Lexington.
?Tennessee is coming off a tough weekend at Alabama, so we are going to have to be ready,? said head coach Eileen Schmidt. ?We have had two poor games in the last two weeks at Georgia and against LSU. Besides that, we have been competitive. We just have not gotten the big hit or the big defensive play. You want breaks, but in the same regard, you have to make your own breaks.?
The Wildcats were swept over the weekend in Lexington by No. 13 LSU. UK moves to 14-16 on the year and 2-10 in conference play and is ranked fifth in the SEC East.
Senior Meghan Cooper leads the Wildcats with a .361 average and is second on the team with six doubles. Junior Brooke Marnitz belted her team-leading fifth homer of the season against LSU and leads the SEC with 21 walks this year. Junior Katie Campbell leads the team with 27 RBI, while Marnitz is second with 15 runs batted in.
?We need to have a solid effort in getting leadoff batters on, moving people up and raising our level of play with runners in scoring position,? said Schmidt. ?We did all those things earlier in the year and we need to get back to that. This is a tough conference, but it?s no tougher than our early season schedule.?
