ULM Warhawks

MONROE, La. – The ULM softball team heads to Troy for its first action of the week with a three-game Sun Belt Conference series Friday-Sunday, March 18-20, with the first pitch for the first game Friday at 6 p.m. CT. Saturday's contest is set for 2 p.m. and the series finale is at noon on Sunday.
 
The Warhawks' mid-week doubleheader vs. Alcorn State was moved to Wednesday, then canceled due to weather, but ULM used the practice time to prepare for Troy.
 
"We were preparing for Alcorn, but with the cancellation, we shifted our schedule a little bit to get ready for Troy," said ULM softball head coach Molly Fichtner. "It worked out pretty well since we got an extra day to look at Troy. It will be a fun matchup. They are a really good team -- they didn't make it to NCAA Regionals by accident (last year)."
 
Both the Warhawks (15-6) and the Trojans (16-6) captured their first league series last weekend with 2-1 records. ULM took two games from Georgia State and Troy won the first two of three games at Coastal Carolina.
 
ULM leads the Sun Belt in ERA at 2.46 (45^th NCAA) and is second with a .304 team batting average (54^th NCAA) and an average of 6.14 runs scored per game, good for 32^nd nationally. The Warhawks also rank 32^nd in on-base percentage at .400. Overall, eight different Warhawks scored runs in the three-game series vs. Georgia Southern last weekend.
 
Pitchers Kinsley Kackley and Kassidy Giddens are ranked second and fourth, respectively, in the league in ERA at 1.51 and 1.57 to solidify the Warhawks 'place atop the league. Offensively, Lourdes Bacon is second in hits with 27, third in batting average (.403) and third in on-base percentage .494.
 
This weekend marks the conference home opener for Troy with the Trojans returning to the Troy Softball Complex after playing 13 consecutive games on the road. The Trojans, winners of 36 games last year, were selected third in the 2022 Sun Belt Conference preseason poll and earned a first-place vote.
 
Troy leads the all-time series with ULM 34-17 with a 15-6 mark in games played at Troy. The Trojans swept the regular-season series vs. ULM and won 5-1 in the Sun Belt Championship to advance in postseason play. Three Trojans, pitcher Leanna Johnson, outfielder Jade Sinness and second baseman Kelly Horne, were selected to the 2022 preseason All-Sun Belt team.
 
Johnson tops four Sun Belt Conference stat categories with 123 strikeouts (9^th NCAA), hits allowed average (3.17, 9^th NCAA), shutouts (3, 21^st NCAA) and victories (10, 11^th NCAA). Horne has the on-base percentage at .610 (6^th NCAA) and best batting average in the league at .429 (56^th NCAA). Her slugging percentage of .839 is the Sun Belt's best and 39^th in the nation and she's second in the country with 1.14 walks drawn per game. She's second to teammate Jade Sinness in runs per game with Sinness checking in at 1.23 and Horne at 1.14.
 
"Troy does have a little more experience than we do, they have been to postseason and have that experience," Fichtner said. "I told the team, 'we've got nothing to lose and everything to gain this weekend.' We're excited."
 
Live stats are available for this weekend's games at Troy with links for each game on the softball schedule page at ULMWarhawks.com.