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SB: HCU takes on Northwestern State in final home games of 2024 campaign

11 outgoing seniors making final appearnace at Husky Field this weekend will be honored in "Senior Day" series finale on Saturday


 
HCU (17-24, 4-14 SLC) vs NORTHWESTERN STATE (17-27, 4-14 SLC) Houston Christian University returns to Husky Field for the final time in the 2024 campaign, hosting Northwestern State University in a three-game Southland Conference series. The Huskies and Lady Demons will play a twi-night twin-bill on Friday beginning at 4 pm before a "Senior Day" series finale at 12:05 pm on Saturday afternoon. HCU will recognize 11 outgoing student-athletes making their final appearance at Husky Field this weekend with a ceremony following the matinee.
 
HCU has not played since last weekend's series sweep at the hands of league-leading McNeese. The Huskies dropped the series opener 8-0 on Friday but then gave the three-time defending SLC champs all they could handle in the Saturday pair, dropping game one 6-3 before falling 5-4 in nine innings in the finale.
 
The two teams will come into the weekend set nearly identical on the season ledger. Both will hit Husky Field with 17 wins overall, knotted in the Southland standings at 4-14 with each having six games left to play. In another interesting twist, the two clubs also come in with double-digit outgoing seniors, as Northwestern State has 10 of it's own. After the weekend series, one last conference series in the regular season remains for either squad next week, as the Huskies conclude the campaign on the road at Texas A&M-Commerce, and Northwestern State entertains University of the Incarnate Word in Natchitoches.
 
Jasie Roberts leads the Huskies on the offensive side. She paces the team with a .336 batting average while hitting three homers and driving in 16. She is tied in homers and RBI with junior outfielder Maddy Bailey, and the two are tied with senior second basemen Kaicey Hagler, who also has three home-runs to go a career-best .278 batting average.
 
Roberts has been climbing the career leaderboards most of the season, and now takes spots in the Top 10 all-time in at-bats, hits, RBI and games played. She is just the ninth player to both hit the century mark in RBI and appear in 200 or more games, and is now the fourth player in school history to take 600 or more at-bats, placing third coming into the weekend. She is 12th in the league in batting average and leads the league in being hit-by-pitch, having been beaned seven times on the season.
 
HCU has five total players in double figure RBI, led by Haylie Savage with 22. Savage also paces the Huskies in homers (7), doubles (10) and runs scored (32). She is eighth in the SLC in slugging (.561) and ninth in OPS (.957), while placing seventh in run scored, ninth in doubles, third in homers and ninth in walks.
 
Savage posted her second career four-hit game in the finale against McNeese, going 4-5 with two stolen bases. Her previous four-hit game came in a record-setting day for the junior from Angleton, when she went 4-4 and clobbered two homers while driving in a career-best eight runs in a 19-8 win at UTSA last season. Her walk-off grand slam in the finale at home against Nicholls two weeks ago was the second of her career. She is now batting .293 on the season and has matched her career-best with the seven dingers.
 
AB Garcia is batting .295 on the season, and is 13-14 in stolen bases, upping her career total to 36. She is just three away from fifth place, with only nine standing between her and the second spot on the all-time leaderboard.
 
Taking the circle this weekend at Husky Field for the final time is the senior trio of hurlers: Lyndie Swanson, Katy Janes and Ronni Grofman.
 
Swanson won both games of the Nicholls series April 12-13, and in doing so captured the Southland Conference Pitcher of the Week honors for the first time in her career. The Katy native is now 6-7 overall on the campaign with a team-best 3.19 ERA and she ranks 10th in the SLC with 68 K's in 90 innings.
 
She stands just two victories from the Top 10 and coming into the weekend has toed the rubber for 111 games in her career, three shy of tying Jennifer Elias for the Top spot in career appearances in the circle. She is already one of just nine hurlers with over 400 career innings, sitting sixth all-time with 464. She is also seven punchouts away from the Top 10 there, with 270 strikeouts and counting.
 
Janes is now 4-4 overall on the season, turning in a gritty complete game effort in the finale at McNeese last weekend in which she went 8.1 innngs. Grofman has five victories for the second straight season, and is second behind Swanson in ERA at 3.48 with 58 K's in 76.1 innings pitched.
 
HCU and Northwestern State have met 33 times over the years. The Huskies fell to the Lady Demons twice in a three-game series in Louisiana last season, sandwiching a 2-1 victory between 8-0 and 6-1 losses. NSU is coming off taking two of three from Texas A&M-Commerce last weekend at home, before defeating Louisiana Tech at home 8-6 on Tuesday of this week.
 
Tristin Court paves the way for the NSU offense, batting .331 with three homers and 28 RBI. She ranks 15th in the league in batting average, ninth in slugging, third in doubles (15) and ninth in RBI. Taylor Williams is just behind her at 16th in the SLC in batting, hitting .328 on the year with two homers and 18 RBI, and she leads the team in hits (41) and runs (27).
 
Kenzie Seely and Maggie Darr lead the pitching staff. Seely is 8-12 on the season with a 3.46 ERA and 98 K's in 125.1 innings. She is ninth in the conference in wins, fourth in innings pitched and strikeouts, and eighth in opponents batting average, holding others to a .229 average at the plate. Darr is seventh in the league in strikeouts (79) and innings (110) while sporting a 6-13 overall mark with a 2.86 ERA.
 
In addition to Roberts, Hagler, Swanson, Janes and Grofman, HCU will also bid a fond Husky Field adieu on Saturday to seniors Riley Martin, Jackie Jessup, Maggie Childs, Tabitha Burnett, Juls Garcia and Autumn Sydlik.
 
HCU ends the regular season slate next week with its final road games of the campaign to take on Texas A&M-Commerce. That series has already been adjusted from the original Friday/Saturday scheduling, and has been pushed up a day to Thursday and Friday to accommodate HCU softball's participation in Spring Commencement on May 4.
 
The Southland Conference Tournament is from May 7-10 hosted by Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.
 
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