A&M-Victoria softball opens RRAC Tournament vs. TAMUSA
A familiar foe awaits the Texas A&M University-Victoria softball team this week.
A&M-Victoria takes on rival Texas A&M-San Antonio in the first game of the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament this week. The game is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday at Champions Sportsplex in Alexandria, Louisiana.
The schedule for the conference tournament has been adjusted due to forecasted heavy rain for Friday. The game, which was originally scheduled for 9:30 a.m., is now part of a Thursday doubleheader where the winner faces the LSU Alexandria-Southwest winner while the losers of those two games play each other in an elimination game – both starting at 1 p.m. There are no games scheduled for Friday.
The Jaguars (26-16) enter the conference tournament as the No. 4 seed in the tournament after a series win over Jarvis Christian to close out the regular season.
Consistent production
The Jaguars used a strong weekend throughout the lineup to close out the regular season on a high note, but especially from Deeandra Maldonado and Alyssa Carter.
Maldonado led the team last week, going 5-for-8 with four runs, three RBIs and a double. Carter continued to prove why she leads the team in batting average, slashing .500 over the three games with a team-high four RBIs. Daizie Fuentez also had three RBIs to go with three hits and an .857 OBP
That's helped A&M-Victoria to a .326 team batting average with nine players boasting double-digit RBIs. Angelina Morales' 30 RBIs lead the way for the team.
Pitching groove
A&M-Victoria's pitchers limited Jarvis Christian to four earned runs last week for a staff ERA of 1.65 with Zoe Hardy and Kailea Freeman earning wins in the circle.
That helped the team's season ERA fall to 3.58 with Madelyn Butler's 3.19 leading the way.
Hardy leads the way with nine wins for the Jaguars in the circle after her career-high eight strikeout performance in Game 1 last week. She's struck out a team-leading 62 batters this season.
Scouting A&M-San Antonio
This will mark the fourth meeting between the rival Jaguars this season after A&M-Victoria won the regular season series with victories of 6-5 and 7-6 in the first two games at the Victoria Youth Sports Complex.
Madison Carr came up clutch in both of those games, delivering walk-off hits in each game.
A&M-Victoria owns a 22-5 edge in the all-time series now. This is the third consecutive year where A&M-Victoria and A&M-San Antonio have met in the first game of the RRAC Tournament.
Follow along
Live stats for Thursday's games will be available on TAMUVAthletics.com, but there will not be a live stream for games that day. Beginning Saturday, 446 Sports will stream the games and fans can purchase a tournament pass for $25 to watch all games.