SFA Wraps Up Regular Season At Home
5/2/2008 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 2, 2008
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - After beginning the 2008 season picked to finish outside the field of eight for the Southland Conference Tournament, the Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack softball team enters the final weekend of the regular season with its eyes on a second-place finish. SFA hosts Northwestern State in a three-game series, beginning with a Saturday doubleheader set to start at noon from Hoya Field.
The Ladyjacks are currently the middle team in a three-squad log jam around the No. 2 spot in the SLC standings. The second-place team, UTSA, is separated from fourth-place Texas-Arlington by only one game. SFA enters this weekend's series as the conference's third-place team with a 17-9 SLC record. The Roadrunners are a half-game up with an 18-9 mark, and UTA trails SFA by a half-game with its 17-10 record.
A Ladyjack sweep against Northwestern State, coupled with at least one UTSA loss in the Roadrunners' series at Sam Houston State, would give SFA a second-place finish and a first-day bye in next week's SLC Tournament. UTA hosts Central Arkansas in a three-game set this weekend.
SFA enters this weekend's series with the top pitching staff in the Southland and the No. 2 offense in the league. The Ladyjack pitchers have compiled a 1.91 earned run average, the only team ERA in the SLC below 2.00. The staff is led by freshman Monika Covington, who ranks second in the conference in ERA with her 1.31 mark and leads the league in strikeouts with 210. Covington has a 17-10 record on the season.
SFA's team batting average of .280 is just one percentage point off the .281 pace set by league-leading Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The Ladyjacks lead the league in runs scored with 244, and their 215 runs batted in rank second in the conference. SFA is third in the league in home runs with 38.
Sophomore outfielder Kendal Harper leads the team and is second in the league with her .386 batting average. Senior first baseman Jessica Tullos is second on the squad, batting .328. Tullos is third in the SLC with 10 home runs and has already set new single-season and career home run marks this year. With 32 RBI, she stands just eight away from setting a new single-season record in that category and tying Tara Hersey's career mark of 110. Harper is also closing in on history in a couple of categories. She needs to add just two more hits to her season total of 66 to move into first place on the single-season list and will become the SFA leader in single-season stolen bases with the next bag she swipes. Her 26 steals this season are tied for the single-season record.
Northwestern State brings an 8-44 season mark and a 3-23 record in Southland play to this weekend's series. The Demons have lost 10 straight games and 15 of their last 16 contests. As a team, Northwestern ranks 10th in the conference with a .222 batting average. The Demons' 7.30 ERA is the worst in the SLC.
SFA is looking to put the wraps on one of the best seasons in program history. The Ladyjacks' 32-21 overall record is the first winning mark posted by an SFA softball team since 2000, when the Ladyjacks went 26-22 and just missed the SLC Tournament with a seventh-place finish. The last time an SFA team won 30 games in a season was 1994, when the Ladyjacks went 31-31, and the program has posted just two seasons with better than 32 victories since joining the Southland Conference in 1988. SFA has already earned a berth in the SLC Tournament, marking the Ladyjacks' first appearance there since 1990, when they won it.
Tullos is the lone senior on this year's team. She will be honored in a ceremony immediately preceding team introductions for Sunday's regular-season finale. The game is scheduled to start at noon.
-- SFA --
