FULTON, Mo. -- After dispatching Benedictine University-Springfield in the first round, the William Woods University softball team looks to continue its run in the AMC Postseason Tournament on Tuesday. The Owls host Park University for the best-of-three series, with a doubleheader slated for a 3:30 p.m. start. The game time has been pushed back from the originally scheduled 2 p.m. first pitch due to wet conditions in the Fulton area.
Quick Look - William Woods
After shaking off the doldrums from an 85-minute rain delay, WWU swept through its first round series with Benedictine-University Springfield in solid fashion, with
Kelsey Schulte hurling two complete games to compliment home runs from both likely (Schulte,
Caroline Sicht) and unlikely (
Ashley DePew) sources as the Owls picked up 10-4 and 9-2 wins over the Bulldogs.
Coming into the tournament as the number two seed, the Owls look to repeat their amazing run from 2011 and win a second straight AMC Conference title and return to the NAIA National Championship. WWU is currently sitting just outside the top 25 in the NAIA Coaches' Poll, having earned 80 points in the weekly balloting. The team boasts four .300+ hitters on the season, with
Ilissa Facchini leading in both batting average (.378) and on base percentage (.521), having drawn 30 walks on the year. The junior has also picked up 31 RBI, second best on the team. With a solid series against Benedictine-Springfield, Sicht leapfrogged into second on the team with a .370 average, adding a slugging percentage of .551 on the campaign.
Lindsey LeCuru (batting .368) has the team's best slugging percentage, with her 18 doubles, two triples and four home runs good for a .592 mark and a national ranking - 19th in total doubles, 19th in doubles per game.
Kristy Pluchinski rounds out the .300 club with a .354 average. Schulte - while sitting just shy of the .300 mark at .297 - leads the team with six triples, good for 11th in the country.
Schulte is also nationally-ranked in the circle for WWU, holding her opponents to a .193 batting average, good for 34th in the country. As a team, the Owls post a 2.02 ERA and have forced their opponents into an ERA of 3.86. With back-to-back complete game wins, Schulte also pulled back out in front of the innings-pitched race between herself and
MacKenzie Bowden, with Schulte working 128.0 innings in 22 appearances to 110.1 innings in 21 appearances for Bowden. All three starters for WWU have solid records, with Schulte (11-7) and Bowden (11-5) each in double-digit wins.
Becca Schemmer is within reach of the mark at 8-4 on the season. Bowden is dominating the national rankings, however, holding down the fourth spot with 13.05 strikeouts per nine innings, and ranks 19th in total strikeouts with 160. She also ranks 24th in opponents batting average, holding her foes to a .184 mark. Bowden is also officially 18th in the country with three saves on the year, although due to a lingering bug in DakStats, her true ranking is much closer to the top 10.
In the field, the Owls are also solid, ranking 22nd in the country in fielding percentage with a mark of .963. WWU has suffered just 50 errors in 1368 chances, with
Kacey Scharnhorst among a logjam of players with perfect fielding percentages in better than 75 percent of their respective team's games.
Lauren Lopes and
Kristy Pluchinski are also perfect on the year, although both sit shy of the threshold.
Quick Look - Park University
The Pirates have put together a respectable 31-13 record on the 2012 season, finishing third in the league and rolling over Hannibal-LaGrange University 10-2 and 15-2 in the first round of the AMC Postseason Tournament. Park is a solid-hitting team, batting .347 as a team with 10 players above the .300 mark. Jamie Tanno leads the team with a .461 batting average and a staggering slugging percentage of .969. She's hit just fewer than half of the team's home runs on the season - 14 of 29 - and has 23 doubles as well. Surprisingly, she doesn't have a single triple on the year, with the Pirates collecting only 11 triples on the season. Tanno has drawn 17 walks on the year, and has been hit 12 times in 2012. Taylor Lipps is also above the .400 threshold for Park on the season, albeit with a more pedestrian .594 slugging percentage. Park is a mirror image of its opponents on the basepaths, giving up 37 stolen bases in 43 attempts and stealing 37 in 44 tries.
In the circle, the Pirates have collected a 2.14 ERA on the year, with Megan Walker posting a squad-low mark of 1.74 with an 8-4 record. Justine Riner boasts a 12-6 record behind a 2.07 ERA, and has struck out 95 batters on the year with just 14 walks. Kaily Purtle rounds out the Pirate pitching staff with an ERA of 2.56, en route to a 10-3 overall record.
Defensively, Park has mustered a fielding percentage of just .952 on the year, being charged with 59 errors in 1,228 chances in 2012, with only Kalla Jones and Lipps going error-free on the year.
Playoff Bracket
Find the latest playoff information - including live stats links for every game and an up-to-date bracket throughout the tournament - via the tournament central hosted at amcsportsonline.com, the official website of the American Midwest Conference.
Live Stats Available
In addition to live video for when you're not able to make it to the games, live stats are available for all William Woods University softball games. Launch http://wwuowls.com/SB_LiveStats in your smartphone browser for full details of the games as they happen, including play-by-play, in-game performance and previous plate appearance tracking.
Postseason Admission
As a reminder - per American Midwest Conference and NAIA regulations, WWU season passes are not valid for postseason events. Current William Woods faculty, staff and students are admitted free, with all other tickets just five dollars.
