Softball Ready for Home Series with FIU

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The Marshall softball team is back at Dot Hicks Field for a three-game series against the FIU Panthers Thursday through Saturday, April 14-16. The series finale on Saturday, April 16, is Emileigh Cooper Day when the Herd will honor her memory and announce the 2022 Warrior Award winner.

The Thundering Herd enters the series with an overall record of 25-11 and 8-4 in league play. The Panthers come to town with a 17-21 record and 3-9 in Conference USA action. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+ and broadcast on 88.1 WMUL-FM with audio streamed online. Links are below.

Series Details
Marshall Game Notes (PDF)
Live Stats: SIDEARM
Thursday at 1 p.m. LIVE STREAM
Friday at 1 p.m. LIVE STREAM
Saturday at 12 p.m. LIVE STREAM
Series History: 24 all-time meetings, Marshall leads 14-10
Last Meeting: April 23-25, 2021 in Miami – Marshall won three of the four games

The Herd is coming off a series win at Florida Atlantic over the weekend and then a split at Northern Kentucky on Tuesday.

As a team, Marshall is batting .323 this season and has outscored its opponents 229-114. The Herd has slugged 72 doubles and 48 home runs.

Fifth-year senior Aly Harrell continues to lead the team at the plate with a .475 batting average, good for fifth in the NCAA, and a .626 on base percentage which ranks second in the country. She has 47 hits, 31 runs, 27 walks and 13 hit-by-pitches that all lead the Herd. Harrell is 10th in Marshall history with 207 career hits and recently moved into second all-time in career hit-by-pitches surpassing her old teammate Sierra Huerta (2019-21). Harrell has combined for 205 total free passes in her career.

Senior Mya Stevenson's slugfest continues as she now has 14 homers this season and 54 in her career. She is just five home runs away from claiming the top spot in program history away from Marshall Hall of Famer Rachel Folden who hit 58 from 2005-08. Stevenson leads the team with 37 RBI and 11 doubles as well.

Fifth-year senior Saige Pye is second on the team with 12 home runs, 40 hits and 36 RBI. She has reached base safely in 77 of the 86 games that she has played at Marshall.

Fellow fifth-year senior Madison Whitaker has reached base safely at least once in the last 13-straight games. A streak that goes back to March 11 versus Norfolk State. Whitaker collected three hits including two doubles in the twinbill at Northern Kentucky on Tuesday.

Redshirt junior pitcher Sydney Nester leads the Herd pitching staff with a 1.61 ERA, 18-5 record and 218 strikeouts in 152 innings. She was named the Conference USA Pitcher of the Week for the fifth time this year on Monday, April 11, after another dominant weekend at Florida Atlantic. Nester became the fastest pitcher in team history to record 200 strikeouts in a season. She achieved the mark in her 26th outing and 137th inning pitched. The previous record was held by Andi Williamson from 2013 when she hit 200 in her 29th outing and 153.1 innings.

The 2022 Warrior Award winner will be announced prior to the start of the game on Saturday. It is the highest honor that the team hands out as the award goes to the player who best personifies the qualities that Emileigh Cooper held as a member of the Herd from 2012 to 2015. Cooper's drive, fire, passion, energy, competitiveness, and confidence was infectious during her four years with the Green & White. Marshall softball created the award in her memory after Cooper was tragically lost to an auto accident in 2016. The inaugural award was presented in 2017.

Past Warrior Award Winners
2017 – Rebecca Myslenski
2018 – Madi Marshall
2019 – Hayden Ellis
2020 – No award due to COVID
2021 – Blakely Burch

It is named the Warrior Award as Warrior is the word that Cooper chose in 2015 when the players were asked to choose one word that best represented them and then create an identity statement from that word. Cooper's identity statement was, "I am a confident warrior. I am the fire in C-USA that will always keep burning." Cooper went from a walk-on to an All-Conference USA performer by her senior season. Her pregame antics and energy could always get her teammates fired up and ready to roll.

Following the series against the Panthers, the Herd will take on Morehead State at Dot Hicks Field for a single game on Wednesday, April 20. Marshall gets back into C-USA action on the road at WKU, April 22-24.

The Opponent
The Panthers are coming off its first C-USA series win of the season, taking 2-of-3 from Middle Tennessee, April 8-10. FIU has been swept by Louisiana Tech and WKU and lost 2-of-3 to UAB.

After dropping the first game to the Blue Raiders, 8-2, the Panthers bounced back to take the next two games both by the score of 6-2. Vanessa Gallegos hit a grand slam in the second inning of the first win and Brooklyn Linneman earned her seventh win. In the series finale, Bailey Grossenbacher drove in four runs off two doubles. Linneman pitched again going the first four innings and then Kendahl Dunford threw the last three innings, earning her second save. Dunford did not allow a run, scattered three hits, and struck out four.

The offense is hitting .233 with Kayla Whitehead leading the way batting .300. She has 33 hits, four doubles, two triples, three home runs and 11 RBI. Gallegos leads the team with 18 RBI and is tied with Madison Lewis for tops in doubles with five.

The pitching staff has a 4.90 ERA. Dunford has a 4.18 ERA, 5-10 record and 87 strikeouts in 115.2 innings. Linneman is next with a 4.24 ERA, 8-3 record and 21 strikeouts in 64.1 innings. Alexys Lawson has tossed 55.1 innings with 34 strikeouts and a 4.68 ERA.

Head coach Mike Larrabee is in his first season leading the Panthers. He has previous head coaching experience including time at Arkansas. Larabee has 420 wins in his collegiate coaching career.

Following the series at Marshall, FIU heads back home to take on Florida Atlantic April 22-24.

For all of the latest information on the Marshall Softball team, follow the Herd on Twitter @HerdSB, Facebook at Marshall University Softball and on www.herdzone.com.

---HerdZone.com---

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Players Mentioned

Blakely Burch

Aly Harrell

Sierra Huerta

Sydney Nester

Saige Pye

Mya Stevenson

Madison Whitaker

Marshall University Athletics