No. 20 Kentucky Dips Back into SEC Play for Series with Mizzou

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Coming off a 6-2 midweek win in Bloomington, Indiana against the IU Hoosiers, the Wildcats will continue their five-day, four-game road trip on Friday night for a three-game series against the Missouri Tigers in Columbia, Missouri. 

All three games of the series will be shown live on the SEC Network+, ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app with live stats available through UKathletics.com.

Kentucky amassed 11 hits against Indiana pitching on Wednesday night, the highest hitting offensive output for the Wildcats since an 11-hit day against the Arkansas Razorbacks on March 25. Breanne Ray, Alex Martens, Rachael Metzger and Abbey Cheek all had multi-hit games for the Wildcats with Ray driving in four runs en route to the win. 

UK is currently sitting at 14 games over the .500 mark at 27-13 with a 6-9 league record. The Tigers, who are opening a new stadium this season, are 27-18 and 5-9 in the SEC, and are on a three-game winning streak with three midweek wins the past two days.

The Wildcats checked in at No. 16 in the NCAA’s week four release of the RPI (April 17). Kentucky has the No. 24 strength of non-conference schedule in the nation and has nine wins against the RPI top 20. The SEC is the No. 1 RPI conference with nine of the top 25 teams in the country.

Friday night will be the 15th all-time meeting between Kentucky and Missouri with each side winning seven games during the course of the series. The Wildcats won the last three-game series by two games to one, winning the Friday and Sunday games. In the Saturday game a year ago, UK committed six errors – the most under Rachel Lawson to allow the Tigers to even the series. Kentucky has won two of the last three series against Mizzou. There has not been a sweep of either team since the Tigers joined the SEC. 

Coming off of three wins in the last two days in midweek opponents, the Missouri Tigers enter the weekend on a three-game winning streak and 27-18 overall on the season. The Tigers are 5-9 in the Southeastern Conference through five league series, with their game on Monday night at Florida rained out earlier in the season to give them 14 league games. Missouri took one of three from Auburn last weekend, winning game one 6-1 before dropping the final two games of the series on The Plains. 

The Tigers are led offensively by Kirsten Mack who is hitting .364 on the season with nine HR’s and 33 RBI. Mizzou’s power hitter is Braxton Burnside, who is in at .345 with 11 home runs and 45 RBI. In the circle, Cheyenne Baxter leads the way with a 14-5 record and 2.10 ERA on the season. 

Friday, April 21 – Game one – 7:30 p.m. ET – SEC Network+, ESPN3, WatchESPN app

Saturday, April 22, Game two – 3 p.m. ET – SEC Network+, ESPN3, WatchESPN app

Sunday, April 23, Game three – 1 p.m. ET – SEC Network+, ESPN3, WatchESPN app 

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