No. 17 Kentucky Hosts No. 22 Arkansas in SEC Home Opener

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The No. 17/18 Kentucky softball teams opens its Southeastern Conference home slate of games this weekend in Lexington, hosting the No. 24/22 Arkansas Razorbacks for a three-game series set to kick off on Friday night at 6 p.m. ET. All three games of the weekend can be seen live on the SEC Network+, ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app with Saturday and Sunday’s games being called by Dave Baker (pxp) and former head coach Carol Bruggeman (color).

Kentucky is coming off a 2-1 series defeat down in Athens against No. 16 Georgia. The Wildcats took the opening game in a pitcher’s duel on Saturday afternoon, but dropped the final two games of the series to exit its opening SEC weekend 1-2. Kentucky was on a bye for the first weekend of SEC play and has only played one league series to this point. 

Meagan Prince got her third top-20 win of the season for the Wildcats in the circle on Saturday afternoon, throwing a one-run gem over seven innings in the 2-1 win over the Bulldogs. The win for UK was its first in Athens since 2007 and head coach Rachel Lawson’s first win as Kentucky’s head coach at Jack Turner Stadium.

Offensively, Kentucky remains amongst the nation’s best at stolen bases, with 53 this season, which is good for 18th in the NCAA. UK as a team is hitting .303 on the season and has hit 23 home runs with Rachael Metzger leading the offense with six long balls on the season. Abbey Cheek leads UK in batting average, at .368.

The Razorbacks have been the surprise of the SEC so far this season, entering the third weekend of conference play at 21-6 overall after winning just 10 games a season ago in Courtney Deifel’s first season at the helm of the Razorbacks. Arkansas is ranked first in the SEC and seventh in the NCAA with 1.26 home runs per game this season, led by Nicole Schroeder, who is fifth nationally and first in the SEC in home runs hit. In the circle, the Hogs have used five different pitchers this season, with Autumn Storms leading the charge. Storms has a 1.54 ERA in a team-high 77 innings thrown. 

Arkansas leads the all-time series with Kentucky 30-22, but the Wildcats have won each of the last two series and five of the last six games with the Razorbacks. Last year, the Wildcats outscored Arkansas by at least six runs in all three games. The last time Arkansas won a series in Lexington was Rachel Lawson’s first season in Lexington (2008), when the Hogs took both games of a weekday doubleheader. 

The Wildcats checked in at No. 19 in the NCAA’s initial release of the RPI. Kentucky has the No. 20 strength of non-conference schedule in the nation and have three wins against the RPI top 25 already. The SEC is the No. 1 RPI conference. Arkansas is 25th in the RPI.

Friday, March 24 – 6 p.m. ET, SEC Network+

Saturday, March 25 – 3 p.m. ET, SEC Network+

Sunday, March 26 – 1 p.m. ET, SEC Network+

For the latest on the Kentucky softball team, follow @UKSoftball on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.