Longwood University Athletics

Games 50-52: Longwood (24-25, 12-6 Big South) vs. USC Upstate (25-13, 12-3 Big South)
Dates & Times	Game 1 vs. USC Upstate: May 8 • 1 p.m. Game 2 vs. USC Upstate: May 8 • 3 p.m. Game 3 vs. USC Upstate: May 9 • 1 p.m.
Location	Farmville, Va. • Lancer Field
Game Notes	Longwood | USC Upstate | Big South
Statistics	Longwood | USC Upstate | Big South
Broadcasts / Live Stats	Game 1 vs. USC Upstate: ESPN+ | Live Stats Game 2 vs. USC Upstate: ESPN+ | Live Stats Game 3 vs. USC Upstate: ESPN+ | Live Stats

The First Pitch
•    Longwood will close out the 2021 regular season with a critical Big South series against fellow Big South title hopeful USC Upstate Saturday and Sunday at Lancer Field.
•    Longwood enters the game ranked third in the Big South with a 12-6 league record while USC Upstate sits in second place at 12-3. Both teams have already secured spots in the four-team Big South Championship tournament on May 13-15 in Boiling Springs, N.C. The teams are separated in the standings by just three games.
•    Longwood and USC Upstate are the Big South's active leaders in conference winning percentage. The Lancers are 134-45 (.749) in league play since joining in 2013, while the Spartans are 30-9 (.769) since joining in 2019. 
•    The Lancers have finished no lower than third in the Big South every year, spanning back to their inaugural season in the league in 2013. Longwood has won three Big South Regular Season Championships (2015, 2016 and 2019) and five Big South Championship tournaments (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019).
•    Prior to first pitch in game one Saturday, Longwood will honor its six-woman senior class of graduate students Kasey Carr and Destiny Martinez, and seniors Sydney Backstrom, Mallory Odell Leah Powell and Arleigh Wood for Senior Day. Carr and Martinez have won two Big South Championships with the Lancers, including 2017 as freshmen and 2019 as juniors, while Longwood's fourth-year seniors have one league title to their credit.

Last Time Out
•    In their final non-conference tune-up of the regular season, the Lancers split a Sunday doubleheader with future Big South foe North Carolina A&T. Longwood took the opener 10-1 in five innings before the Aggies bounced back for a follow-up 4-3 victory in game two.
•    The game-one win was Longwood's third double-digit scoring game of the season and featured four extra-base hits, including a homer from Alexis Wayland in the first inning.
•    Game two saw North Carolina A&T escape a number of jams and strand 10 Lancer baserunners en route to a one-run victory.

By The Numbers
•    In three career appearances against USC Upstate, senior ace Sydney Backstrom is 3-0 with a 1.12 ERA. That includes a complete-game win in the semifinals of the 2019 Big South Championship in which she struck out eight, walked none and allowed just two runs; a four-inning shutout relief appearance in a 15-inning, nationally-televised 2-1 win on ESPNU on March 24, 2019; and a six-inning start that featured nine strikeouts, two walks and one earned run on March 23, 2019. 
•    Longwood is 4-0 against USC Upstate since the Spartans joined the Big South in 2019.
•    Longwood 12-7 in the opening game of doubleheaders this season. Backstrom has started 17 of those 19 openers and is 10-5 in those starts.
•    Longwood is 20-12 since March 10. That stretch includes an 11-game winning streak from March 10-28, five Big South series wins and eight wins in 12 series overall.
•    Longwood is 14-1 when leading after the third inning and a perfect 17-0 when leading after the sixth. 
•    Of Longwood's 29 non-conference games, 11 have been against teams either ranked or receiving votes in the USA Today/NFCA Coaches Poll. 
•    Longwood has stolen 110 bases this season, marking only the second time in program history the Lancers have surpassed the century mark in steals. The only other team to hit that mark was the 1999 Lancer squad that stole 136 in 53 games.
•    Sydney Jacobsen leads the Big South with 21 extra-base hits. Thirteen of those have been doubles, while four have gone for triples and five for home runs. 
•    Junior left-hander Angelina Sherba has allowed only four earned runs in her past 13.0 innings, good for a 2.15 ERA during that stretch. She has surrendered only 10 hits in that span, which encompasses four relief appearances that have all gone at least 3.0 innings. 
•    Shortstop Kasey Carr has not made an error in 10 consecutive games and has just one miscue in her past 17. She boasts a .972 fielding percentage on the year with just three errors in 35 games.

Quotable
"We had great fight in game one, and it was a good team win. Game two taught us some important lessons, especially at this time of year. We have lots of work ahead for this week as we prepare for our last conference series."
— Longwood head coach Dr. Megan Brown following Sunday's doubleheader split with North Carolina A&T

Series History
•    Longwood and USC Upstate meet for the first time since 2019 when the Lancers toppled the Spartans in the semifinals of the Big South Championship tournament in Buies Creek, N.C.
•    Longwood, seeded No. 1 in the tournament, won that last meeting 4-2 over No. 2-seeded USC Upstate in a matchup of a between two teams who were at that point unbeaten in the tournament.
•    Longwood is 6-1 against USC Upstate overall and 4-0 since the Spartans joined the Big South in 2019. That includes a three-game regular-season series sweep on March 23-24, 2019, and the semifinal win in the 2019 Big South Championship.
•    Longwood senior pitchers Sydney Backstrom and Arleigh Wood are a combined 4-0 against the Spartans. Backstrom is 3-0, while Wood is 1-0.

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