Tulsa to Host Missouri State, Illinois State this Week

Weekly Notes

TULSA, Okla. — The University of Tulsa softball team will return home to Collins Family Softball Complex for a pair of games against Missouri Valley Conference foes Missouri State and Illinois State. The Golden Hurricane will host the Bears at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 13, before a 5 p.m. matchup with the Redbirds the following day.

Wednesday is Pi Day (3.14) at Collins Family Softball Complex and the first 500 fans will receive a free pie courtesy of Bama Pie.

Tulsa (14-9) is coming off a 2-1 weekend at the Jayhawk Invitational in Lawrence, Kan., which was shortened due to weather. The Golden Hurricane has won 11 of its last 14 games and the squad is hitting .317 during that time.

The squad features a pair of double-digit hitting streaks going into the week from Shelby Estocado (15 games) and Julia Hollingsworth (14 games). Estocado leads the team with a .429 batting average and five homers, while Hollingsworth is up to .426 with a .557 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot in the batting order.

Tuesday, March 13
5 p.m. — Missouri State at Tulsa (Stats/Video)

Wednesday, March 14
5 p.m. — Illinois State at Tulsa (Stats/Video)

Notes
TU to Host Missouri State, Illinois State This Week
• Tulsa will host a pair of old Missouri Valley Conference foes this week as it will face Missouri State at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12, before a 5 p.m. matchup with Illinois State the following day.
• The Golden Hurricane is 22-24 all-time against the Bears and 3-7 against the Redbirds. TU last played Missouri State in 2016, a 2-1 victory in Springfield, while this will be the program's first matchup with Illinois State since 1999.

Going Streaking
• After starting the season 3-6, Tulsa has won 11 of its last 14 games and is coming off a 2-1 weekend at the Jayhawk Invitational in Lawrence, Kan.
• During the stretch, Tulsa is hitting .317 while the pitching staff owns a collective 2.37 ERA. The offense has outscored its opponents 90-39 with the help of 32 extra-base hits.
• Emily Watson has led the pitching staff with five wins and a 1.69 ERA during the stretch and freshman pitcher Samantha Pochop is 4-0 with a 2.07 ERA. Opponents have hit just .184 against Pochop in her last five appearances.

More Streaks
• Shelby Estocado will enter Tuesday's matchup with Missouri State on a 15-game hitting streak, which has raised her batting average to a team-leading .429 for the season.
• Estocado is 26-for-51 (.510) during the streak with four doubles, a triple, three homers and 18 RBIs.
• Julia Hollingsworth also is on a 14-game hitting streak to boost her batting average to .426.
• Hollingsworth is hitting .468 (22-for-47) with 17 runs, a double, two triples a homer and seven RBIs during her streak. Six of those games have been multi-hit outings, including a season-high three hits against Nicholls State (March 3) and Nebraska (March 10).

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, 1.81), opposing batting average (2nd, .208), strikeouts (2nd, 672), shutouts (t-2nd, 25), wins (3rd, 57), games started (5th, 84), complete-games (6th, 53), saves (6th, 4), innings pitched (8th, 527.0) and appearances (8th, 101).
• Shelby Estocado ranks fifth in program history with 28 homers, five round-trippers this season. She also ranks eighth with 108 RBIs and 10th with 278 total bases.
• Julia Hollingsworth currently owns the program-record with a .461 on-base percentage, while her career .368 batting average ranks second. She ranks seventh with 36 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 7-4 record with a 2.24 ERA and 75 strikeouts in 68.2 innings pitched.

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 25th and Texas A&M is 7th in the NFCA Coaches Poll, while TU also will face defending national champion No. 5 Oklahoma (April 17) and 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 head to Fayetteville, Ark., for the Wooo Pig Classic where it will take on Iowa State, Saint Francis (Pa.) and Omaha.

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Tulsa to Host Missouri State, Illinois State this Week

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Players Mentioned

Shelby Estocado

Julia Hollingsworth

Emily Watson