This WeekendNORFOLK, Va. – The Norfolk State softball team will honor its five seniors on Saturday before hosting Hampton for the final regular season games of the year this weekend at the NSU Softball Field.
NSU and Hampton will play a pair of games on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m., with a single game on Sunday starting at noon.
Live stats and a
live video feed of all three games will be available. The live video feed will also include audio commentary as well.
Prior to Saturday's games, the softball team will honor five seniors along with their friends and family at home plate for their contributions to the program. Those recognitions are expected to start around 12:40 p.m.
NSU will acknowledge four-year players
Nikki Jones,
Kathy Cortez,
Morgan Boyd and
Jamie Schulle and two-year junior college transfer
Stephanie Wheatley.
The Spartans and Pirates will then play a key three-game series with second place – and possibly first – on the line. With both teams saddled with three MEAC losses this year, the winner of the series will finish no worse than second, with the other team locked in third place.
Delaware State also has three losses but owns the tiebreaker over both teams. NSU or Hampton can finish in first by sweeping the series coupled with a loss by DSU this weekend at UMES. Only the top four teams in each division advance to the MEAC tournament.
NSU owns a 19-21 overall record this year, with Hampton at 23-18.
Complete StandingsBoth DSU and NSU own 12-3 records in conference play, with Hampton at 11-3 after having a game rained out at Coppin State last week. Coppin State (5-8) has the slight edge over UMES (4-9) for fourth place, with Morgan State (4-10) still technically eligible for fourth as well. Howard (3-15) cannot advance to the conference tournament.
Senior SaluteTheir freshman season in 2011 for the foursome of Jones, Cortez, Boyd and Schulle marked the start of a turnaround for the softball program. After missing out on the MEAC tournament the year before in 2010, NSU won 23 and 24 games the next two years, finishing 12-6 in the MEAC in 2012 as well.
That 12-6 mark was just the second time the Spartans finished better than .500 in the MEAC since 1998. NSU then went 31-22 last year and 15-3 in the conference, the most MEAC wins ever and the most overall wins in 16 years. The Spartans made their second-ever MEAC tournament final appearance in 2013 thanks in part to the combined efforts of this year's senior class.
Cortez, Schulle and Boyd have all earned All-MEAC status at one point during their careers. Boyd is NSU's career leader in hits, while Schulle owns several pitching records, including career marks for strikeouts, appearances, starts and innings pitched.
With 97 wins so far, this is NSU's winningest senior class in the Division I era – the class that doesn't count D-II wins. The 1999 seniors finished with 104 wins, but 62 of those came during the program's D-II days in 1996 and '97.
National RankingsNSU sits eighth in the nation in double plays per game as well as in the top 100 in home runs per game (66
th, 0.88), slugging percentage (79
th, .447), scoring (90
th, 4.85 runs) and earned run average (93
rd, 3.07).
Morgan Boyd ranks 17
th in the nation with 0.65 stolen bases per game, 40
th in batting at .425 and 83
rd in runs per game at 0.90. Both
Whitney Williams (71
st) and
Heather Dunning (79
th) rank in the top 100 in toughest to strikeout, while Dunning is also No. 100 exactly in average (.394).
One MoreThe Spartans need one more home run to surpass the school's fast-pitch record. NSU currently has 35 homers this season, tying the 1997 team for the most ever during the fast-pitch era.
Series Info.Hampton owns a 60-49-1 edge in the all-time series that dates back to their Division II days. NSU took two of three from the Pirates in 2012 in the Spartans' first year in the North, and Hampton did the same last season. The two teams also split in last year's MEAC Championship round.
About HamptonThe Pirate offense is led by Margaret Wilkins, who is hitting .397 with 38 runs scored, 25 RBI and 21 stolen bases. Danielle Budden (.349, five homers, 28 RBI) and Kayla DeSchepper (.323, 24 RBI) also add to the scoring effort, as does Taylor McCoy (.313, 10 doubles, 25 RBI).
In the circle, Jailynn Jackson owns a 15-10 record with a 2.67 ERA, striking out 115 in 173.1 innings. Jecholia Pratt has started 16 games and carries an 8-8 record with a 5.35 ERA.
Up NextNSU will compete next Thursday in the first round of the MEAC tournament at the Ormond Beach Sports Complex in Florida. The Spartans would play at 1:30 p.m. as the No. 2 or 3 seed or at 10 a.m. as the No. 1 seed.
