SIU-E tops OVC softball

Sean Hastings, Staff Reporter

The Eastern softball team is currently in seventh place in the Ohio Valley Conference standings with a 9-8 record.

Southern Illinois-Edwardsville is the top team in the conference with a 14-3 record. Murray State and Tennessee Tech round out the top three with 12-5 and 11-6 records.

Tennessee State sits at the bottom of the conference with a 2-14 record and Belmont is right above them with a 4-12 record.

All teams are fighting to host the conference tournament at the end of the year, which is hosted by the top team in the OVC.

Sophomore Jessica Twaddle of Murray State leads the conference with a .434 batting average on the year. Murray State has the highest team batting average in the conference at .315.

Senior Eastern Panther Hannah Cole has the seventh highest batting average in the conference at .361, and fellow senior Panther Bailey O’Dell is 11th with a .354 batting average.

O’Dell has the 4th most homeruns in the conference with nine. Junior Olivia Bennett of Tennessee Tech leads all hitters in that category with 12.

Tennessee Tech also has the most combined homeruns with 43.

O’Dell is also in fourth for slugging percentage with .673, 10th in hits with 40, seventh in runs batted in with 31, seventh in doubles with nine.

Senior Kayla Fortner of Southeast Missouri State leads hitters with 37 RBI’s.

Senior Laurel Burroughs of Austin Peay leads all base runners with 19 stolen bases on the season. Junior April Markowski leads the Panthers and sits at ninth in the conference with nine stolen bases.

Junior Haley Chambers of SIUE leads all-conference pitchers with a 1.46 ERA.

Freshman Bailey Douglass of Edwardsville (1.97), sophomore Danielle Liberatore of Tennessee Tech (2.01), sophomore Taylor West of Jacksonville State (2.27) and Logan Green also out of Jacksonville State (2.46) round out the top five for ERA in the OVC.

Eastern freshman pitchers Jessica Wireman and Michelle Rogers have the best team ERAs and sit in 14th and 16th place in the conference at 3.97 and 4.07.

Chambers leads in almost every other major pitching category.

She has 18 wins in 24 appearances, she is holding opponents to a .186 batting average, has pitched 148 1/3 innings, and has 218 strikeouts.

Chambers not only has great success on the mound but she also leads all hitters with hits. She has 50 hits on the year.

Liberatore is second in in the conference with 179 strikeouts. Wireman is eighth with 69.

Eastern pitchers Wireman and Rogers are in sixth and 11th for innings pitched with 105 and 97.

Wireman is third on the list for saves with two sitting behind Douglass and freshman Whitney Gillespie.

Gillespie of Jacksonville State has given up the least amount of hits on the year.

She has given up 60 hits in 73 innings of work. Gillespie has a 2.88 ERA on the year, which is good enough for 7th in the OVC.

All schools will continue their conference schedules this weekend.

 

Sean Hastings can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected]