March 22, 2010
LEXINGTON, Ky. – After enjoying a six-game homestand the Kentucky softball team returns to the road for a doubleheader with No. 17 Tennessee on Tuesday. This marks the second consecutive season the two squads will play a mid-week doubleheader. Last season the two squads split the series in Lexington. First pitch is set for a 4 p.m. ET start.
Kentucky is coming off of a 4-2 week which included an upset of No. 5 Alabama and a series win over Arkansas. Sophomore Brittany Cervantes hit .400 for the week with four home runs and 11 RBI. Against Arkansas, senior Molly Johnson batted over .500 for the series and has a hit in 17 of UK’s last 20 games. Senior Natalie Smith has stretched her hitting streak to seven games and earned a hit in every game last week to pace the team.
Tennessee enters the series with Kentucky possessing a 21-7 overall record and a 3-3 mark in Southeastern Conference action. The Lady Vols are currently ranked No. 17 in the NFCA poll and 21 in the ESPN poll. Tennessee is led at the plate by Raven Chavanne who is batting an incredible .500 for the season with 49 hits on the season. Chavanne has 15 RBI and eight extra base hits on the season.
In the circle, Ivy Renfroe holds a 2.81 ERA and an 11-2 record. Renfroe has struck out a team-best 88 batters and limited opponents to a .249 batting average.The teams have faced one similar non-conference opponent in Liberty. Both squads earned commanding shutout victories over the Flames.
Tennessee leads the overall series with a 28-9 mark, but the two squads split a doubleheader a season-ago. Kentucky has claimed a win over the Lady Vols two seasons ago in Knoxville during a three-game set.
In 2009, the first back-to-back home runs of the season for the Kentucky softball team could not have come at a better time. In the seventh inning with UK trailing by two runs, Brittany Cervantes hit a two-run shot and Natalie Smith followed with a solo home run to give the Kentucky softball team a come-from-behind 6-5 victory, over No. 12 Tennessee to earn a split with the Volunteers in a conference doubleheader.
Megan Yocke led off the inning with a clutch single that found a hole in shallow center field to put a base runner on. Cervantes then drilled her second home run of the series over the left field wall to equal the score at five a piece. With no outs on the scoreboard, Smith came to the plate and locked in on the second pitch of the at-bat. She lofted a solo walk-off home run over the right-field fence for her first round tripper of the season–and her first-ever walk-off home run.
For the most up-to-date information on the UK softball team please visit UKathletics.com.
