March 11, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- The Samford softball team will begin the 2011 Southern Conference season at Chattanooga to round out its seven-game road swing on Saturday and Sunday. The Bulldogs recently played four road games in three days and will play three more before returning home to Birmingham.
Samford (3-15) comes off a tough midweek doubleheader loss at Mercer on Thursday. The Bulldogs dropped the first game, 9-0, and battled to eight innings in the second before falling, 8-6, on a walk-off home run by the Bears.
Whitney Terry has moved into the lead for Samford with a .400 batting average. The senior from San Jose, Calif., hit her first home run of the season Thursday evening in game two to put the Bulldogs ahead in the sixth inning. Robyn Harmon still leads in slugging percentage (.593) while Aaren Fisher leads in hits (11) and Alex Adams leads in RBI (7).
Kayla Burris (2-7) remains Samford's most worked pitcher in the circle. The senior from Cordova, Tenn., has pitched 49 innings and recorded 26 strikeouts so far this season. She holds a 5.86 ERA. Nicole Bobrowski (1-3) is the only other Bulldog pitcher with a win on her resume for 2011. The freshman from Madison, Ala., boasts a 4.48 ERA and has struck out 14 batters in 29.2 innings of play.
Chattanooga holds a 28-7 lead in the series with Samford. The first meeting between the Bulldogs and the Lady Mocs was in 1994. Samford won the first three games of the series before the Lady Mocs began to take over. UTC won 11 straight games before Samford added its fourth win in the series in 1999. The Lady Mocs then won 10 in a row. Samford has only defeated Chattanooga once since entering the Southern Conference three years ago. That win was in 2009 and resulted in a 6-0 shutout of the Lady Mocs.
Chattanooga, who was picked the runner-up in the SoCon preseason standings, holds a 13-5 record on the season so far. The Lady Mocs started the season 2-5 in the Dot Richardson's National Collegiate Softball Invitational. They then went on to win the South Alabama Mardi Gras Invitational with an undefeated record and dominated their own Frost Classic, going 5-0, in that tournament as well. Indiana snapped UTC's 10-game win streak last weekend before the Lady Mocs picked up another win over Campbell. However, they eventually fell to top-ranked Georgia to end the weekend at the UGA Bulldog Invitational.
Tiffany Baker leads the Lady Mocs with a .453 batting average and a team-high 24 hits and five home runs. She holds an .811 slugging percentage, with over a third of her hits being extra-base hits. Michelle Fuzzard has been named both SoCon Player of the Week and Pitcher of the Week already this season. At the plate, Fuzzard boasts a .364 batting average and leads the team with 21 RBI on 19 hits. In the circle, her ERA is 3.19 and she boasts a record of 7-3. She has recorded 33 strikeouts in 48.1 innings of work, which is second on the team.
Saturday's action at Frost Field will feature a doubleheader starting a 12 p.m. CT. Sunday's series closer will begin at 11 a.m. CT. Fans can follow all the action via live stats through links at the Samford softball schedule page at www.samfordsports.com. A full recap and statistics will also be posted at the conclusion of each day's games.
