Kentucky Hosts South Carolina for Senior Weekend Finale

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The 2021 softball regular season comes to a close this weekend, as the No. 17 Kentucky Wildcats will play host to South Carolina beginning Friday night at John Cropp Stadium. This weekend also marks Senior Weekend in Lexington, as UK will honor its four seniors, Grace Baalman, Lauren Johnson, Mallory Peyton and Autumn Humes prior to Saturday’s game.
 
All three games of the series have tickets available through the UKathletics.com ticket page, or by calling the UK Ticket Office. Friday’s game will start at 6 p.m. ET, with Saturday’s game starting at 2 p.m. ET and the series finale on Sunday slated for a 1 p.m. ET start. All three games will stream live on SEC Network+, ESPN3 and the ESPN app with Dave Baker and Joanna Lane on the call from Lexington.
 
Kentucky is currently seeded No. 8 in the Southeastern Conference with three games remaining for all teams except for Arkansas, who has concluded its regular season at 19-5. There are five teams within a three-game window of each other, meaning Kentucky could slide up as high as the five seed in the SEC Tournament, and could also fall as low as the 10 seed. The 2021 SEC Tournament begins on Tuesday in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at Rhodes Stadium on the SEC Network and runs through Saturday night.
 
Kentucky is 35-12 on the season, and after a three-game sweep of Texas A&M, sits 10-11 in SEC play. John Cropp Stadium was selected as one of 20 potential NCAA Tournament host sites for regionals, which will be announced on Selection Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Sixteen of the 20 sites announced will be selected to host the regional round.
 
South Carolina enters the weekend with a 25-22 overall record on the season and is 4-17 in SEC play. The Gamecocks are led by 11th-year head coach Bev Smith and are also concluding the regular season this weekend. The Gamecocks’ leading hitter is Kenzi Maguire, who is hitting .443 on the year with 33 RNI and 58 base hits on the year. Leah Powell leads the way in the circle for USC with a 2.64 earned run average in 24 appearances and has thrown a team-high 77 innings.  
 
For the latest on UK Softball, follow the Wildcats on Twitter and Instagram at @UKSoftball.