MILWAUKEE – Today at the MSOE Softball Field, the Mount Mary University softball team will take on the host Milwaukee School of Engineering Raiders (25-9) for their annual Strike Out Cancer doubleheader. Each teams' players and coaches have been selling shirts with proceeds going to respective cancer research; the fourth time these teams have raised money and awareness for the cause.
The Raiders stride into today's series on a seven-game winning streak and have defended their home turf at an 11-3 rate. That success has been guided by precision from their pitchers (2.71 team ERA) and plenty of well executed "small-ball."
Emily Snow leads that offensive charge with a stratospheric .477 batting average and .547 on-base percentage. Snow also leads the team in RBIs (33), doubles (18), runs (30) and slugging percentage (.679).
As a team, the Raiders have 174 RBIs. Getting timely hitting from across the entire line-up, nine of the Raiders have ten or more RBIs on the season.
MMU is coming off a weekend in which they finished 4-2 against Maranatha Baptist University (7-22), North Central College (18-16), and Finlandia University (22-12). The weekend saw the young Blue Angels make some incredible plays on defense and a combined 54 hits from their offense in those six games.
Newcomers Sidnee Turnage (Fr./Hesperia, Calif.) and Katie Arce (Fr./Cypress, Calif.) have sparked that offense all season long. Turnage leads the team with .444 batting average, 20 RBIs, and four home runs. Arce is hitting .414 from the dish and has only struck out only three times in 70 official at-bats.
In the circle MMU has seen a dip in the team's ERA over the last weekend. Hannah Harnsberger (Fr./Hillsboro, Ore.) came out of the bullpen in both games Saturday and pitched a combined 8.0 innings surrendering just four hits and no runs.
MMU and MSOE will have live stats and audio available courtesy of the MSOE Athletic Department. Links to both can be found at mtmaryathletics.com.
