NORFOLK, Va. – After taking two of three games at Morgan State last weekend, the Norfolk State softball team returns home to host Maryland Eastern Shore this weekend in a three-game MEAC series at the NSU Softball Field.
 
The Spartans, currently 2-1 in the league, will take on the Hawks on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. for a pair of games. Sunday's contest at noon will close out the series. Both live stats and live video will be available for all three games.
 
NSU has won eight of its last 10, and at 14-12 overall, the Spartans are the only team in the MEAC above .500 for the year. The next closest team is at nine games below .500.
 
Maryland Eastern Shore owns a 4-15 overall record heading into its doubleheader on Thursday at UMBC. The Hawks split a doubleheader with Howard last weekend for a 1-1 conference record so far. The third game of the series was pushed back to a later date.
 
Delaware State and Coppin State also split a doubleheader last weekend for identical 1-1 MEAC records after one full week of Northern Division play. Bethune-Cookman, Florida A&M and North Carolina A&T all swept their three-game series in the Southern Division.
 
The Spartans currently lead the 12-team league in ERA at 3.20 while ranking second in batting average at .274. Maryland Eastern Shore is second-to-last in average (.228) and third-to-last in team ERA (7.70).
 
Series History
NSU won all three meetings last year against the Hawks, the first time the Spartans had swept MDES since 2012. Maryland Eastern Shore took two of three in 2017, and the Spartans did the same the previous four years from 2013-16. NSU now leads the all-time series 64-11, the most wins against any one team in program history.
 
Other MEAC Rankings
NSU has several players taking charge in the league. Senior Hunter Halford owns the top ERA in the league at 2.61, and she is second with seven wins and fourth with 57 strikeouts. Sophomore Skylar Swain is third in ERA at 3.21.
 
At the plate, sophomore Tuli Iosefa leads the league in home runs with six, and she and senior Kylee Lopez share the MEAC lead in RBI with 22. Iosefa is also first in total bases with 49. And two other players also in the league lead include junior Shelby DesChamps in both runs (27) and hits (35) and sophomore Jazzmaine Hammond in stolen bases (18).
 
Iosefa is also third in slugging (.613), and DesChamps is third in total bases (47) and fifth in batting average (.393).
 
Fast Spartans
NSU ranks 11^th in the nation in stolen bases per game at 2.27. Hammond is 13^th in the same category with 0.75 stolen bases per game. DesChamps ranks 77^th at 0.46. She also sits 40^th in the country in runs per game at 1.04.
 
The Spartans have the most home runs in the MEAC with 14, as well as the most runs (123) and stolen bases (59). NSU has also allowed the fewest number of walks with 43 despite eight teams having played fewer games so far this season.
 
Halford's Place
Halford finds herself in numerous pitching categories as she comes to the stretch run of her senior season. She now ranks eighth all-time at NSU with 204 career strikeouts. She is also sixth in shutouts (7), eighth in starts (59) and innings (361.0), 11^th in appearances (70) and complete games (35), 12^th in wins (24), and 14^th in ERA (3.35).
 
She is also ninth in career home runs with 13.
 
Big Inning
Two weeks ago, in a 15-4 win over North Carolina A&T, the Spartans scored 11 runs in the second inning. Not since April 27, 2011, in a 19-1 win at Maryland Eastern Shore, had NSU scored at least 10 runs in an inning. That day, NSU had 10 runs in the third inning against the Hawks.
 
The Spartans have not scored at least 11 runs in an inning since tallying 12 in the fourth inning in a 17-0 win over Coppin State on Feb. 22, 2009.
 
Iosefa hit a pair of home runs in the game against A&T. Last year, an NSU player hit two home runs in a game four times, including twice by Halford and once each by Lopez and Seana Moriarty.
 
What's on Tap
The Spartans will not compete the following weekend, April 6-7. Instead, NSU will play at UMBC next Wednesday for two games and then at Hampton on April 9 for a pair of games as well.