Georgia Southern Hosts North Florida
4/17/2012 6:27:00 PM | Softball
STATESBORO, Ga. - Georgia Southern Softball welcomes North Florida to the friendly confines of Eagle Field for a Wednesday afternoon doubleheader starting at 3 p.m. North Florida was the Eagles' final opponent in the 2012 Eagle Classic, a game the Ospreys won 4-1. Georgia Southern took a three-game series from College of Charleston last weekend to improve to 28-14 overall and 14-1 in league play.
Against Charleston Sarah Purvis (Warner Robins, Ga.) won the first and last games of the series. In the opener she went 10 innings with 16 strikeouts. She came on in relief on Sunday to pick up the victory which improved her to 15-8 this year. She has 179 total strikeouts this season and hasn't allowed more than three hits in her last six appearances, four of which were complete games.
The Eagle pitching staff owns a 1.85 team ERA with Brooke Red (Warner Robins, Ga.) posting a 1.59 ERA in her freshman season with the Eagles. Allie Miles (Dacula, Ga.), the SoCon Preseason Pitcher of the Year has come on strong of late, earning complete game victories in her last two league outings.
Marie Fogle (Rincon, Ga.) is the top batter for the Eagles with a .420 batting average and a .664 slugging percentage. Fogle has been moving up the career charts at Georgia Southern and ranks third in career batting average (.345) and first in career slugging percentage (.547). Mackenzie Williams (Baxley, Ga.) leads the Eagles with seven home runs and 30 RBI to go with a .299 average.
North Florida is 26-21 with a 7-7 mark in the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Ospreys dropped their last two games on Saturday afternoon against USC Upstate. Both games against the A-Sun's No. 2 team went to extra innings. Mariah Reynolds leads the UNF offense while Kaylie Wallace has a 1.62 ERA and 114 strikeouts to lead the North Florida pitching staff.
After Wednesday's doubleheader, the Eagles are back in action at Appalachian State. The series starts with a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Sunday.
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