Illinois softball (0-3,0-0) gears up for a five-game series in Leesburg, Florida, which will see it take on Liberty, Kansas, Southern Illinois, UC Riverside and Coastal Carolina, with Liberty and Kansas up first on Friday. Illinois comes into the series after three games in the Tiger Invitational, hoping to get its first win of the season.
Last weekend featured a trip to Alabama and three games for Illinois — two against No. 23 Virginia Tech and one against Belmont. Despite losing all three games, the Illini were close to flipping the results of their first game against the Hokies (18-1) and only lost 6-5 in their second meeting.
Liberty’s (1-5, 0-0) last time out was a 7-5 loss to Central Florida. Illinois has a chance to scout Liberty before the Friday matchup as Liberty plays Coastal Carolina on Thursday before Illinois.
Game two of the Friday slate of the Spring Games sees Illinois take on Kansas (2-3-1, 0-0) at 3:30 p.m. on Friday. Kansas enters the weekend after a loss to South Florida. Kansas also gets a couple of warm-up games on Thursday as it takes on UC Riverside and Coastal Carolina before playing Illinois on Friday.
Saturday’s schedule has Illinois facing two teams during the day again. Illinois will be opposite Southern Illinois (3-2, 0-0) on Saturday at 11 a.m. Southern Illinois starts the Spring Games on Friday against UC Riverside and Iowa before playing Illinois.
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Senior infielder Sidney Jones leads Southern Illinois in batting average and on-base percentage, currently hitting .364 with an OPS of .962.
Southern Illinois’ pitching rotation is led by freshman Maddia Groff, who has been dominant in her three starts this season, with a perfect game against Creighton and a complete game against Texas State.
The second game in Illinois’ Saturday slate is against UC Riverside (2-2,0-0). UC Riverside is led into the game by sixth year outfielder Nadia Witt who was a team-high .583 batting average to start the season.
UC Riverside’s pitching has also been dominant to start the young season being led by fifth year senior Briza Blanco. Blanco possesses a 1.40 ERA with an average of 2.5 innings per outing.
The final game of the Spring Games series is against Coastal Carolina (4-0,0-0), which has started the season off hot. Coastal Carolina is led by graduate student outfielder Indya Smith. Smith boasts a .556 batting average and an OPS of 1.858 with a pair of home runs on the year.
Illinois looks to get its season off to a better beginning through the hot start from sophomore infielder Sydney Malott. Malott may be a key piece for Illinois to get its first win of the new season.
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