The Eastern softball team will look to continue its recent success this weekend in a three-game home series against Tennessee State at Williams Field.

The Panthers (12-15, 4-6 in the Ohio Valley Conference) swept a doubleheader on Tuesday at Southeast Missouri and hope to ride that momentum into the weekend against the last place Tigers (8-22,2-8).

The teams will play the first two games at 2 p.m. Friday and a third game at noon Saturday.

The Panthers will look to take advantage of the poor pitching that TSU has produced this year. The Tigers are currently last in the OVC with a 5.13 earned run average while the Panther bats have been inconsistent at providing runs thus far.

“I don’t know what to expect from TSU,” Eastern head coach Lloydene Searle said. “It really depends on us hitting them. I try not to look at statistics and try to focus on our performance.”

Probable starters for TSU are sophomore Shannon Hicks and freshman Tarah Evansiko. Both hurlers have compiled 4-11 records and have struggled to keep opponents from crossing the plate.

The Tigers try to make up for their lack of pitching with strong hitting. The team features two of the top four hitters in the conference with senior catcher Deanna Miller and Hicks.

Miller ranks first among every day players with a batting average of .386 while Hicks brings a .351 average with 13 RBI.

Eastern will go with the pitching duo of junior Kristen Becker (7-7) and sophomore Trish Sanders (3-6). Sanders is coming off of a shutout victory against SEMO and Becker has continued to show why she is the Panthers ace with strong performances last week.

The Tigers may also have to battle a little fatigue after being busy all week. TSU played a doubleheader on Tuesday at Tennessee Tech (22-17,6-2), hosted Tennessee-Martin (17-22,6-3) on Thursday, and then has to travel seven hours on a bus to play three games against Eastern.

Searle sees playing at home an advantage, but wants to stay focused on what her team needs to do to a few victories.

“We are really going to have to hold down their hitters and hit like we are capable of doing,” Searle said. “If we play like we are capable of, we are going to have success this weekend.”