Leading Off
• Longwood returns to Lancer Field for the final time on the season with a midweek series against Hampton. The two teams will play a doubleheader Tuesday before concluding the series with a single game Wednesday.
• The Lancers have won their first four Big South series of the season and enter the week in first-place in the Big South standings with an 12-1 mark in conference play.
• Longwood has won its last 16 Big South series dating back to the 2017 season. The last series the Lancers dropped came against Presbyterian.
• With six games remaining in its Big South schedule, Longwood has a chance to match the Big South's top winning percentage of all-time in conference play, tying the 2015 regular season championship team along with Liberty in 2018.
By The Numbers
• Longwood looks to get back to the NCAA Regionals in 2019, as the Lancers look to win their fifth Big South Championship in seven seasons.
• Longwood's 2019 slate will pit the four-time Big South Champion Lancers take against a stacked non-conference gauntlet that features matchups against SEC power Texas A&M, Big 12 power Texas and ACC foes Duke, North Carolina, Virginia and Virginia Tech. Those six Power 5 teams make up a non-conference schedule whose teams combined for more than 550 wins last year, with seven of those foes winning at least 30 games a season ago. Overall the Lancers will face 10 teams that finished last season in the top 100 of the final RPI rankings.
• For the fourth straight season, Longwood was tabbed to win the Big South. Despite capturing four Big South Championships in its six previous seasons, the Lancers have only been tabbed to win the conference in each of the last four seasons.
• Longwood returns six players that have earned Big South accolades throughout their career, including
Kaylynn Batten,
Karleigh Donovan,
Sydney Gay,
Destiny Martinez, Jordan Clark and
Sydney Backstrom.
• Longwood softball head coach
Kathy Riley enters her 22nd season leading the program. Longwood's all-time winningest coach, Riley has surpassed the 700-win mark at Longwood earlier this season and moved past career win No. 800 in Longwood's series win over Charleston Southern.
• In her 25 seasons of coaching,
Kathy Rileyy has posted 23 consecutive seasons above the .500 mark. Her only two seasons below .500 were Riley's first two seasons at Mount Olive.
Last Time Out
• Longwood scored two runs in the seventh inning two times on Wednesday, but the rally that won game one fell just short in game two. Longwood claimed a 3-2 win in game one thanks to an RBI double by
Alexis Waylandd and an RBI single from
Jordan Clark, but Radford won game two 4-2 after Longwood's rally fell short.
•
Alexis Wayland drove in a pair of runs in the game one win while leading off the game with a homer for the fourth time this season while going 4-8 at the plate between the two games. Three of her four hits were extra-base hits.
Scouting Hampton
• Hampton enters its midweek series against Longwood with a 21-19 overall record and a 5-13 mark in Big South play, on the outside looking into the conference tournament.
• The Pirates are on a three-game losing skid after dropping two of its three games against Radford by one run.
• Taylor Warrick leads the Pirates with a .372 batting clip, including five home runs and 20 extra base hits. In the circle, Emily Workman leads the way with a 1.92 ERA in 47.1 innings.
#GoWood
