SHAWNEE – Week five of Great American Conference action sends the Oklahoma Baptist softball team across state lines for a weekend series with Southern Arkansas on Saturday.
The clubs will meet for a doubleheader tomorrow at 2 p.m. before concluding play on Sunday in a single contest at 1 p.m.
This will be the 28th all-time matchup against SAU, who owns a 22-5 series advantage. OBU secured its first-ever series win over the Muleriders last season, besting the opposition two games to one in Shawnee.
Oklahoma Baptist claimed the series on a walk-off in the rubber match, courtesy of a hit from Reagan Ford that allowed the winning score. Southern Arkansas ranked No. 17 in the country at the time.
The Bison picked up their third top-25 win of 2024, a tie of the program's record for ranked victories, on Wednesday as they split with No. 5 UT-Tyler. The triumph snapped UTT's 17-game winning streak and handed the Patriots its first home-field loss in 44 games. It was the longest active home winning streak in Division II at the time.
OBU took down UTT 3-2 in the twin bill's finale on the back of an outstanding performance from pitcher Maggie Place. The freshman held the talented Patriot offense to six hits while inducing 10 flyouts and six groundouts. She also struck out five batters for the fifth time this season.
Offensively, rookie catcher Abby Laskowski blasted the go-ahead score in the seventh inning to help secure the victory. It was her second home run of the season.
With the win, Oklahoma Baptist moved to 19-8 with a 12-1 mark against league opponents, good for the top spot in the GAC standings. It is the best start to conference play in program history (DII era).
The Bison pair a .276 batting average with the league's fourth-best slugging percentage (.423). A product of OBU's firepower at the plate is its 19 home runs, which ranks second in the GAC.
Third baseman Ally Ryan is responsible for nine, the second most in the conference and five off the program's DII record for knocks in a season. Dani Davis set the OBU mark with 14 home runs in 2018.
Ryan is hitting .406 with a slugging percentage of .841 and owns the GAC's best on-base mark (.538). She has reached base in all but one contest and recorded seven multi-hit outings.
Morgan Max and Kennedy Clark trail with batting averages of .352 and .327, respectively. Max has the second-most multi-RBI games (6) for the Bison and needs one more home run to top her career-best mark (6) earned a season ago.
The OBU pitching staff, led by Kayleigh Jones, boasts the GAC's best ERA (2.29). They've racked up 203 strikeouts, 10th-most in the country, and are limiting opposing squads to a .208 average inside the batter's box.
Jones pairs a 10-3 record with a 2.04 earned run average, while Place has a 2.44 ERA with a 7-5 season tally. The duo have 180 punchouts and six shutouts between each other.
Additionally, Place has tied the program record for wins by a freshman, set by Katie Long in 2018. Place reached the mark in 57.1 innings and 15 appearances, 34.1 fewer frames, and six fewer outings than Long.
SCOUTING SOUTHERN ARKANSAS
Southern Arkansas brings a 20-9 overall record and 9-5 GAC tally into Saturday's matchup, fresh off a midweek clash with Delta State on Tuesday, where they beat the Lady Statesman 15-3 (5 inn.) and 9-0.
Before then, the Muleriders were swept at Southern Nazarene, which dropped them out of the NFCA DII Top 25 Coaches Poll. SAU debuted at No. 13 before falling out after being slotted at 19th in last week's edition.
Southern Arkansas sits second amongst the conference in many categories, such as earned run average (2.19), fielding percentage (0.976), slugging percentage (0.443), K-to-Walk ratio (2.58), and strikeouts per seven innings (0.52).
Their pitching staff is led by Sydney Ward, who owns the league's best ERA of 1.52. Her 10-4 record includes four shutouts, 79 strikeouts, and one no-hitter (vs. Henderson State).
Brinson Rogers has a 1.85 earned run average and a 7-5 record in 64.1 innings of work. She also leads the pitching rotation with 92 punchouts.
Regan Dillon and Ariana Rolle have the hot hand at the plate with averages of .378 and .346, respectively. Dillon has a GAC-leading 10 home runs, while Rolle has scored the most runs (18) on the team.
