LEXINGTON, Ky. ? The Kentucky softball team will host Indiana for a doubleheader this Wednesday, Apr. 25, in their final non-conference game of the season. The Wildcats and Hoosiers will face off at 4 p.m. at the UK Softball Complex.
This marks the 12th meeting between the Cats and Hoosiers. UK leads 6-5 in the all-time series despite dropping a pair of games in Bloomington last season.
IU is 20-27 entering this mid-week showdown after four straight losses to Michigan and Michigan State over the weekend. Indiana has lost eight of its last ten with its last win coming in a 2-0 victory over Evansville on April 18.
Junior Jennilee Huddleston leads the Hoosiers with a .357 batting average and 14 doubles. She has 25 RBI and has scored a team-best 25 runs this season. Junior catcher Tory Yamaguchi leads the Hoosiers with 28 RBI and 12 home runs, while she is second with eight doubles and a .295 average. Sophomore pitcher Monica Wright leads the IU staff with 13 wins to go along with 16 losses. She has an ERA of 3.58 and has recorded 130 strikeouts in 205.1 innings of work this season.
Kentucky is now 19-24 on the year and 4-18 in the Southeastern Conference after suffering a sweep at South Carolina over the weekend. The Wildcats remain among the league?s top offenses, ranking second in slugging (.505), triples (13) and home runs (53); fourth in on-base percentage (.369) and fifth in batting. UK is tied with Florida for first in the league with 21 double plays this season.
As a team, the Cats are eighth in the nation with 1.3 home runs per game, while senior Brooke Marnitz leads all of Division I in that category with 0.47 per game. The Wildcats are fifth in the nation in slugging percentage and double plays. Senior Katie Campbell is 26th in the nation with 0.3 home runs per game and 47th with a .742 slugging percentage.
?Indiana is a tough Big Ten team,? said head coach Eileen Schmidt. ?It seems like even when we get outside the SEC, our competition continues to remain difficult. This will be a good game for us to prepare for No. 4 Alabama this weekend.?
