Softball Hosts Drake Today at 5 PM In Home Opener

WEEKLY NOTES

TULSA, Okla. — The University of Tulsa softball team will host Drake at 5 p.m. tonight (Thursday, March 8), in its home opener before heading to Lawrence, Kan., for five games at the Jayhawk Invitational, March 9-11.

The Golden Hurricane (12-7) enter the week on a seven-game winning streak and the squad has won nine of its last 10 games overall. During the winning streak, TU has hit .318 and outscored its opponents 47-18.

Shelby Estocado leads the American Athletic Conference with five homers and she ranks fifth in program history with 28 round-trippers.

The Bulldogs (12-7) went 2-3 last weekend at the Mizzou Tournament in Columbia, Mo. Macy Johnson leads the team with a .410 batting average and the team is hitting .287 on the season. The Drake pitching staff has a collective 1.33 ERA and is holding opponents to a .203 average.

Following Thursday's game, the Hurricane will head to Kansas to take on Green Bay, UMKC, Nebraska, Northern Iowa and the Jayhawks at the Jayhawk Invitational. Tulsa is 22-22 all-time against the field.

Tournament Schedule
Friday
2 p.m. — vs. Green Bay - Stats
7 p.m. — vs. UMKC - Stats

Saturday
11:30 a.m. — vs. Nebraska - Stats

Sunday
9 a.m. — vs. Northern Iowa - Stats
2 p.m. — at Kansas – Stats/Audio

Notes
TU to Play Six Games in Four Days This Week
• Tulsa will play its first home game against Drake at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 8 before hitting the road for the Jayhawk Invitational in Lawrence, Kan., this weekend (March 9-11).
• The Golden Hurricane is 19-6 all-time in home openers, including a 10-2 mark under head coach John Bargfeldt.
• The Jayhawk Invitational will include contests against Green Bay, UMKC, Nebraska, Northern Iowa and host Kansas. Tulsa is 22-22 all-time against the field.

Going Streaking
• Tulsa will enter Thursday's game on a seven-game winning streak and the Golden Hurricane have won nine of its last 10 games overall.
• During the winning streak, Tulsa is hitting .318 while the pitching staff owns a collective 2.19 ERA. The offense has outscored its opponents 47-18 with the help of 20 extra-base hits.
• Emily Watson has led the pitching staff with four wins and a 1.04 ERA during the streak and freshman pitcher Samantha Pochop is 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA. Opponents have hit just .146 against Watson in her last four appearances.

More Streaks
• Shelby Estocado will enter Thursday's matchup with Drake on an 11-game hitting streak, which has raised her batting average to a team-leading .415 for the season.
• Estocado is 20-for-39 (.513) during the streak with four doubles, three homers and 13 RBIs. She has produced six multi-hit games during the stretch, including three games with three hits.
• Julia Hollingsworth also is on a 10-game hitting streak to boost her batting average to .393.
• Hollingsworth is hitting .429 (15-for-35) with 12 runs, a double, two triples a homer and seven RBIs during her streak. Four of those games have been multi-hit outings, including a season-high three hits with a pair of triples against Nicholls State (March 3).

Watson Named The American Pitcher of the Week
• For the 10th time in her career, senior Emily Watson was named American Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Week on Feb. 26.
• Watson went 3-0, Feb. 23-25, at the FAU "Strike-Out Cancer" Tournament with a pair of shutouts, 30 strikeouts and no runs allowed in 20 innings of work.
• She started the weekend with six scoreless innings against UIC before a season-high 13 strikeouts against Columbia. Watson closed the tournament with a one-hit shutout of FAU on just 84 pitches.

Career Numbers Update
• Emily Watson ranks in the program's all-time top 10 in several categories, including ERA (2nd, 1.76), opposing batting average (.207), strikeouts (2nd, 663), shutouts (t-2nd, 25), wins (3rd, 57), games started (t-5th, 82), complete-games (6th, 52), saves (6th, 4), innings pitched (8th, 514.1) and appearances (t-8th, 99).
• Shelby Estocado ranks 5th in program history with 28 homers, including a league-leading five round-trippers this season. She also ranks 9th with 103 RBIs and 10th with 270 total bases.
• Julia Hollingsworth is currently tied for the program-record with a .454 on-base percentage, while her career .361 batting average is tied for second. She is tied for seventh with 35 stolen bases and her six triples are tied for eighth. Hollingsworth tied a single-game record with a pair of triples in Tulsa's win over Nicholls State (March 3).

Look Who's Back
• Tulsa returns 13 letterwinners, including six position starters, the designated player and three pitchers, from last year's team which went 41-17 and won its first American Athletic Conference regular-season title with a 15-3 league mark.
• The TU offense will bring back all of its home runs, 79.3-percent of its extra-base hits, 76-percent of its runs scored, 74.3-percent of its RBIs and 71.1-percent of its hits from last year's squad.
• The lineup will see the return of NFCA All-Region picks Julia Hollingsworth (OF) and Haley Meinen (DP), while the pitching staff will see the return of second-team NFCA All-American Emily Watson.

It's Elementary, Watson
• The Golden Hurricane pitching staff is anchored by NFCA All-American Emily Watson. The senior nearly set a program single-season record with 348 strikeouts, while her 14 shutouts set a new program standard and led the nation last season.
• Watson also set single-season records with 30 wins, 36 starts, 29 complete games and 246.2 innings pitched.
• The senior was recently announced as one of 50 players across the nation on the "Watch List" for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Award.
• So far in 2018, she has compiled a 7-2 record with a 1.88 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 56.0 innings pitched. Watson has won her last six starts and produced a season-high 13 strikeouts in Tulsa's win over Columbia (Feb. 24).

The Schedule
• Tulsa's 2018 schedule will see the team play 10 games against teams that participated in the NCAA Tournament a season ago.
• The schedule also will have the Hurricane matched-up with teams that started the season either ranked or receiving votes. McNeese State is ranked 23rd and Texas A&M is 7th in the NFCA Coaches Poll, while TU also will face No. 4 Oklahoma (April 17) and RV Oklahoma State (March 21, April 4).
• Meanwhile, Texas State (Feb. 24) and St. Francis (Pa.) (March 17) also started the season receiving votes.

Tulsa Picked to Repeat as American Athletic Conference Champs
• Tulsa garnered six first-place votes and the squad was picked to repeat as American Athletic Conference champions by the league's coaches.
• TU earned 48 points in the poll, while Houston picked up a pair of first-place nods and 44 points to rank second.
• The duo was followed by USF, UCF, Wichita State, Memphis, UConn and ECU.
• Last season, TU won both the regular-season and tournament titles, sweeping those championships for the first time since 2014 when the Hurricane accomplished the feat in its final season as a member of Conference USA.

TU Success Under Coach Bargfeldt
• Now in his 13th season at Tulsa, head coach John Bargfeldt is the program's longest-tenured head coach and has the most wins and highest winning percentage in school history.
• Prior to Bargfeldt's arrival, the program had just four winning seasons in 13 years and did not win a conference title or appear in an NCAA Regional.
• Since his hiring prior to the 2006 season, the Golden Hurricane has had a winning record in all 12 campaigns with six regular-season and six conference tournament titles. In addition, TU has advanced to nine NCAA Regionals, including a spot in the postseason for six of the last seven years.

Up Next
• Tulsa will host Missouri State at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 13, before another 5 p.m. matchup with Illinois State on Wednesday, March 14 at Collins Family Softball Complex. TU then will head to Fayetteville, Ark., for games against Omaha, Iowa State and Saint Francis.

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Softball Hosts Drake Today at 5 PM In Home Opener

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Players Mentioned

Shelby Estocado

Julia Hollingsworth

Emily Watson