Pirates Travel to Creighton for Three This Weekend - Seton Hall University Athletics
The Seton Hall softball team begins a five-game road stretch this weekend as they travel to Omaha to face BIG EAST foe Creighton.
shupirates.com
Omaha, Neb. – The Seton Hall softball team begins a five-game road stretch this weekend as they travel to Omaha to face BIG EAST foe Creighton. The series gets underway on Friday at 4:30 p.m. and continues Saturday at 2 p.m. before the series finale on Sunday at 12 p.m.
LAST TIME OUT
The Pirates took two out of three last weekend against Georgetown in the team's first BIG EAST home series of the season. The Hall used strong pitching from Kelsey Carr (Ridgewood, N.Y.) in game one and Shelby Smith (Friendswood, Texas) in game two to earn the victory, as well as steady offense from Abby Wingo (Portland, Ore.) and Olivia Gilbert (Johnston, R.I.). Wingo went 5-for-8 with a home run in the series, while Gilbert clubbed a pair of home runs in Saturday's doubleheader.
SCOUTING CREIGHTON (12-13, 0-3)
- The Bluejays play their first home conference series of 2023 after being swept last weekend at Villanova.
- Creighton's offense boasts five players with a batting average above .300, led by Cayla Nielsen and her team-best .423 clip.
- Bluejay pitching has thrown two no-hitters in each of the last two weeks. BIG EAST Freshman of the Week Natalia Puchino tossed a five-inning no-no against Kansas City on March 15, while Payton Akers also threw a no-hitter in a run rule win over Penn on March 8.
- Defending-BIG EAST Player of the Year Kailey Wilson got off to a red-hot start this season but has seen her numbers dip in the month of March. The graduate student is batting just .212 since the start of the month. Nonetheless, her six home runs on the season rank as the second most on the club.
- Creighton leads the all-time series, 14-9, though the Pirates took two out of three in South Orange last season. The Pirates have lost their last four games in Omaha and are seeking their first win at Creighton's home field since May 4, 2019.
- Carr was named to the BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll on Monday after her pitching performance last week, going 2-1 with wins over Manhattan and Georgetown. Against the Hoyas, Carr went the distance allowing just two earned runs.
- Wingo is in the midst of the best offensive stretch of her career. She enters the weekend with a team-best .365 batting average and is batting .529 (9-for-17) over her six-game hitting streak.
- Wingo has seen her batting average soar over the last month. After an 0-for-4 performance in game one of the Army doubleheader on Feb. 26, she saw her average dip to .167. Since then, Wingo is batting .487 (19-for-39) over her last 14 games, 13 of which she has had at least one base hit in.
- Seton Hall's nine-run inning on March 15 against Manhattan was its most in one frame since a 10-run rally in the fifth inning against Army on March 6, 2020.
- The Pirates collected 24 hits across the doubleheader against Manhattan on March 15, their most in a double dip since banging out 28 hits against UMBC and Saint Joseph's on Feb. 20, 2022.
- Shelby Smith earned BIG EAST Co-Pitcher of the Week honors on March 6 after striking out 24 batters across back-to-back starts against North Dakota and Texas Tech. Smith was the first Pirate hurler since at least 2016 to have back-to-back appearances with double digit strikeouts.
- Smith enters Friday with 277 career strikeouts to her name, just 23 shy of 300 for her career. She would become the seventh Pirate pitcher to reach 300 strikeouts and the first to reach the milestone since Reganne Camp in 2020.
- The Pirates' 3-2 win over Texas Tech on March 4 was the program's second ever win against a Big 12 opponent, and first since defeating Kansas, 3-2, on Feb. 17, 2008.
- Wingo tallied her 100th career base hit on March 4 against Texas Tech.
- Taylor Hill hit her fourth home run of the season on March 5 against Rutgers, her 14th game of the season. During Hill's freshman season it took her 31 games before she hit her fourth homer.
- Hill has reached base in 18 of the 19 games this season, including a 14-game on-base streak to open the season.
- Seton Hall's game against Rutgers on March 5 was its third extra innings game so far this season, already nearly matching its total of four such games from the 2022 season.
All three games this weekend can be seen live on FloSports. A link to sign up with special Seton Hall pricing can be found here. Live stats for the game can be accessed here.
