Kentucky Stops in Marshall For Midweek Matchup with Herd
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky’s best start to a
season in program history makes its next stop in Huntington, W. Va., on
Wednesday afternoon for a midweek affair with the Marshall Thundering Herd at 4
p.m. ET from Dot Hicks Field. There will be no television coverage of the game,
however live stats will be available on UKathletics.com.
UK is off to a 22-3 start on the season, its
best start through 25 games in program history. The Wildcats are coming off of
a weekend sweep of South Carolina in Columbia to open up Southeastern Conference
play. Kentucky leads the SEC through one week of action as one of only two
teams (Tennessee) to sweep its opening weekend of conference action.
Kentucky is ranked in the top 15 nationally in
both polls, slotting in at No. 13 nationally in Tuesday’s ESPN/USA Today poll
and No. 15 in the recent coaches’ poll release.
Meagan Prince was named the SEC Pitcher of the
Week for the first time in her career on Monday morning by the league office.
Prince picked up another two wins and her first save of the season this week,
collecting wins over Indiana on Wednesday night and South Carolina on Saturday
afternoon to lock up the series. Against the Gamecocks on Sunday, she came on
with two on and no outs to pick up the save by retiring all the batters she
faces to preserve the shutout. Against Indiana, Prince had a perfect game
through 6.1 innings before an infield single gave the Hoosiers their first baserunner
of the game.
Head coach Rachel Lawson is already the winningest
coach in Kentucky softball history. She is sitting on 298 career wins at
Kentucky and can become the first UK head coach to 300 career wins with her
next two wins.
UK has outscored its opponents 39-9 in the
first inning of games this season, and 21-1 in the second inning of games.
That’s a total of 60-10 in the first two innings of scoring in favor of
Kentucky this season. The Wildcats are 14-0 when they score in the first inning
this season and 19-0 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.
UK scored six in the first inning on Friday, three on Saturday and one run on Sunday.
All runs that were scored in the first inning proved to be eventual
game-winning runs.
Marshall (12-8) is coming off of its home and
Conference USA opener with UTEP. The Herd swept the series with the Miners
winning 10-1, 5-1 and 8-3. The win Sunday was the 500th win at Marshall for Head
Coach Shonda Stanton. She has 527 total career victories after spending one
season at IUPUI (1999) before coming to Huntington.
Junior pitcher Jordan Dixon (Edmond, Okla.)
was named C-USA Co-Pitcher of the Week after earning all three wins and
striking out 17 batters. Dixon is now third all-time in program history with 62
career wins. She needs just four more to become Marshall’s all-time leader.
For the latest on the Kentucky softball team, follow @UKSoftball on Twitter, Instagram
and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
