Eastern Illinois Softball Upcoming Schedule
March 20 vs. Austin Peay – 1 pm (G1) … Live Stats | Watch on ESPN3
March 20 vs. Austin Peay – 3:30 pm (G2) … Live Stats | Watch on ESPN3
March 21 vs. Austin Peay – 11 am … Live Stats |
ON-TAP: Eastern Illinois continues its six game homestand this weekend hosting Austin Peay. The series was altered due to heavy rain late in the week and the teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. following by a single game on Sunday at 11 a.m. EIU is off to a 12-5 start to the season, 5-1 in the OVC. The Panthers won two of three games against Belmont last weekend in the Panthers first home games at Williams Field since late April of 2019. Austin Peay enters the weekend at 9-4 overall, 4-2 in the OVC. The Governors swept a three game series from Morehead State last weekend.
BURTON JOINS SINGLE SEASON HOME RUN LIST: Megan Burton continues to put up power numbers early this season as the shortstop added three home runs to her season total over the weekend against Belmont. In the three game series Burton was 3-of-9 with all three hits resulting in home runs. She scored six runs and added four RBI to her season total. Burton now has eight home runs this season and moved into a nine-way tie for fourth on the EIU single season home runs list with eight. The last two players to join that list are current teammates
Mia Davis and
Haley Mitchell, both with eight home runs in 2019. Mitchell holds the single season school record with 12 home runs. For the season Burton ranks 19th in the NCAA in home runs and 17th in RBI. Burton is hitting .309 with 26 RBI this season.
PANTHERS HITTING FOR AVERAGE AND POWER: Eastern Illinois has been hitting for both power and average with its line-up this season. For the year EIU ranks second in the OVC with a team batting average of .313. Two batters,
Katie Nicholson (.433) and
Morgan Lewis (.400) are both at or above the .400 mark for the season. A total of seven batters in the Panthers normal starting line-up are hitting .300 or better this season. The Panthers rank 33rd in the NCAA in team batting average. In addition EIU has hit for power this season with the Panthers first in the OVC and 18th in the NCAA in home runs. As a team EIU has 27 home runs with seven different players connecting for home runs. EIU has added 21 doubles and two triples for a team slugging percentage of .549 which ranks 24th in the NCAA. That combination has produced runs for the EIU offense which ranks 45th in the NCAA in scoring at 5.9 runs per game (101 runs total).
PRICE CLOSES OUT WIN: Freshman
Olivia Price came in to close the second game of the OVC weekend series with Belmont as she tossed four innings of relief to improve to 3-1 on the year. Price is second on the team in innings pitched with 25. She is now one of three EIU pitchers this season with three or more wins.
Sydney Cammon, who is 3-0 on the season, made her first start of the year against Belmont in the game that Price closed out. Staff number one
Jade Montgomery leads the team with 54.2 innings of work with a 5-4 record. Montgomery won a 2-1 contest on Friday evening for her fourth complete game of the season. She is the team leader with 30 strikeouts.
SPEED ON THE BASES: Eastern Illinois was 2-of-3 in stolen bases attempts last weekend against Belmont with
Amber Cieplinski and
Katie Nicholson both picking up steals. For the year EIU has 23 stolen bases in 30 attempts with
Morgan Lewis the team leader with nine stolen bases (ten attempts).
Megan Burton has six stolen bases while
McKinlee Miller and
Abby Taylor each have two steals this season.
PINCH HITTING DELIVERY: Eastern Illinois has had some solid pinch hitting this season as the Panthers are 8-of-18 on the year for a .444 batting average in those situations. In the weekend series against Belmont, EIU was 2-of-4 with pinch hitters with base hits by
Abi Stahlhut and
Andrea Sampson. Sampson's pinch was as three-run double that helped EIU lock up the game two win. For the season
Katie Nicholson, now in the starting line-up, leads the team going 4-for-4 in pinch hitting opportunities.
Sophia Colmenero,
Taylor Jones, Stahlhut and Sampson have the other four pinch hits this season.
DAVIS WITH GOOD WEEKEND VS BRUINS: Senior
Mia Davis returned this year for one additional year in a Panthers uniform. Already active on several career EIU hitting lists, she continues to climb those hitting charts during the 2021 season. Davis has moved up to third in career doubles with 39 and fifth in career RBI with 107. She has also climbed up to number six on the career home runs list with 20. Last week in the series with Belmont, Davis hit .556 at the plate with two doubles.
MITCHELL HOMERS AND WALKS: Haley Mitchell got off to a good start in the first two games of the OVC series with Belmont as the senior hit a home run in the first inning of both contests. For the weekend Mitchell hit .500 but in ten total plate appearances she reached base eight times. Mitchell was walked four times by the Belmont pitching staff and hit by a pitch in two other plate appearances. Mitchell entered the season already the career leader in RBI at EIU and has since increased her total to 147 career RBI. Earlier this season she became the EIU career leader in home runs and now has 33 including the two hit last weekend against Belmont.
GOOD START TO OVC PLAY: Eastern Illinois won two of three games from Belmont last weekend as the Panthers moved to 12-5 overall, 5-1 in the OVC. EIU heads into the weekend tied for first place in the OVC with Southeast Missouri, both schools holding a 5-1 conference mark. In 2018, EIU got off to a 6-0 start in OVC play and was 7-2 through the Panthers first nine games of OVC play.
SERIES HISTORY: Eastern Illinois and Austin Peay will be playing for the 69th time when the two schools meet on Saturday. EIU holds a 51-17 all-time series lead over the Governors but Austin Peay has had the upper hand in recent years. The two schools split their season doubleheader in 2019 after APSU had won the season doubleheader in 2018. The Governors also eliminated EIU from the OVC Tournament in 2018 to give them four wins in the last five meetings. The season series between the schools was rained out in 2017. In 2016, EIU swept a three-game series against Austin Peay at Williams Field in mid-April.
NEXT UP: After hosting Austin Peay this weekend, Eastern Illinois will play eight straight Ohio Valley Conference games on the road. EIU travels to Tennessee Tech next weekend (March 27-28) for a three-game series before a midweek doubleheader on March 30 at SIUE. The game road series ends on April 2-3 at Southeast Missouri.
HEAD COACH: Tara Archibald is her second season as the head coach at Eastern Illinois. Last season Archibald led EIU to an 11-10 record to open the season prior to COVID-10 shortening the season for all college teams. The Panthers did not get into Ohio Valley Conference play, so Archibald will coach her first conference games this season. Archibald is a 2004 graduate of Southern Illinois where she played softball for the Salukis helping the team make the 2003 NCAA Tournament. She hails from a softball family with her father, Gerry Glasco, the head coach at Louisiana. She has coaching stops at both the high school and collegiate ranks. She is assisted by
Rachel Houck and
Aeshia Miles.
