Pirates Return Home to Face St. John's This Weekend - Seton Hall University Athletics
South Orange, N.J. – The Seton Hall softball team will look to stay red hot in BIG EAST play this weekend as it welcomes St. John's to Mike Sheppard Sr. Field for
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South Orange, N.J. – The Seton Hall softball team will look to stay red hot in BIG EAST play this weekend as it welcomes St. John's to Mike Sheppard Sr. Field for a three-game series beginning on Friday afternoon.
LAST TIME OUT
The Pirates went 2-1 in their road midweek games, sweeping a doubleheader at Monmouth on Tuesday before dropping one at Stony Brook on Wednesday. Dominant pitching led the way on Tuesday, as Sydney Babik (Gilbert, Ariz.) and Kyra Kreuscher (Great River, N.Y.) both pitched complete games, allowing just one run combined over the two outings. Shelby Smith (Friendswood, Texas) continued her hot hitting with a three-run home run, while Olivia Gilbert (Johnston, R.I.) launched her team-leading sixth homer of the year. On Wednesday at Stony Brook, the Pirates got out to a 1-0 lead in the third inning, but four unanswered runs by the Seawolves propelled them to the win.
SCOUTING ST. JOHN'S (13-14, 4-2 BIG EAST)
- The Red Storm come in winners of six of their last seven games, however the team has played just seven times since March 12 due to weather-related cancellations. The Red Storm had their entire series against BIG EAST foe Butler canceled due to inclement weather.
- St. John's most recently took down LIU on the road on Wednesday by a final score of 8-6. In BIG EAST play, the Red Storm have taken two out of three from both Providence and DePaul at home. This will be the Red Storm's first BIG EAST road series of 2023.
- Reigning All-BIG EAST First Team performer London Jarrard leads the St. John's offense, batting .400 on the season with four home runs. The sophomore has eight multi-hit games on the campaign, including a trio of three-hit outings.
- St. John's two aces are Carolina Zamudio and Hannah Mearns, both of which sport ERA's at 3.50 or lower. Zamudio enters the weekend with a 2.94 ERA in 62 innings of work and a .224 opponent's batting average. Mearns sits right at a 3.50 ERA with 52 strikeouts in 64 innings.
- St. John's is Seton Hall's most common opponent by a narrow margin. The two sides have met 91 times, just ahead of Villanova (88 meetings). The Red Storm lead the all-time series, 62-29, though the Pirates have won three of the last four in the series.
- The Pirates enter the weekend 8-2 over their last 10 games, the team's best 10-game stretch since 2006.
- A victory on Friday for the Pirates would bring them to 7-3 through 10 BIG EAST games. That would mark the program's best 10-game start to conference play since 2005, when the Pirates opened BIG EAST play at 8-2 through 10 games.
- Shelby Smith enters the weekend with 292 career strikeouts to her name, just eight 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.
- Abby Wingo (Portland, Ore.) is in the midst of the best offensive stretch of her career. She enters the weekend with a team-best .367 average and is riding a career-best 12-game hitting streak during which she is batting .455. Wingo has also hit safely in 19 of her last 20 games.
- Smith was named BIG EAST Player of the Week for her two-way prowess this past weekend at Creighton. She went 6-for-11 (.545) with two RBI at the plate while also firing a complete game victory in game one of Saturday's doubleheader. This is Smith's second BIG EAST honor of the season, as she was named Pitcher of the Week on March 6.
- Carr was named to the BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll, marking the third straight week in which she has received a weekly honor from the league. Carr went 3-for-3 with a home run and two RBI, reaching all four times she stepped to the plate in Friday's win over Creighton. In that same game, Carr pitched all seven innings, striking out six and allowing just two earned runs.
- In the 11 games Carr has pitched this season, she is batting .296 with three home runs and eight RBI. In the 12 games which Carr has batted but not pitched, she is hitting just .233 with one home run and three RBI.
- Gilbert launched her sixth home run of the season in the second game of Tuesday's doubleheader at Monmouth. At the time, it was her fourth home run over the last seven games.
- 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.
- 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 (Little Falls, N.J.) 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.
