Entering this weekend’s final regular season series, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff softball team desperately needs wins and some outside assistance.
UAPB will host Southern University for its final home games of the season at the Torii Hunter Complex. The teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m., followed by the regular season finale Sunday at noon.
The top four teams in the SWAC West Division will advance to the SWAC tournament. Three of those spots have been claimed, leaving UAPB (12-27, 7-14 SWAC) and Grambling State to fight over the final spot.
GSU sits at 8-9 and currently occupies fourth place, with UAPB trailing behind in fifth. The Lady Tigers travel to first place Prairie View A&M this weekend, where the teams will finish a rain delayed game from earlier in the year before playing three additional games. Prairie View led 12-2 entering the bottom of the seventh inning of the delayed game.
Southern (20-18, 11-7) will then host Grambling next week after this weekend’s series in Pine Bluff, making up a postponed series from earlier in the season.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
UAPB will control any potential tiebreaker with Grambling for the final spot in the tournament after going 4-2 against the Lady Tigers this season, but the Lady Lions must win more games against Southern this weekend than GSU wins out of its final six games, even assuming GSU doesn’t pull off a miraculous comeback in the rain delayed game against Prairie View.
Southern won two out of three games when UAPB traveled to Baton Rouge earlier this season. The Lady Jaguars outscored the Lady Lions 11-3 in the first two games before UAPB won a 10-inning marathon 2-0 in the final game.
UAPB brings some momentum into this series after winning last weekend’s road series at Grambling. The Lady Lions’ 7-6 and 6-4 wins in the April 19 doubleheader were their first SWAC wins this season without ace pitcher Kayla Adams, who hasn’t played since March 30 due to a foot injury.
Shortstop Amari Broughton was named one of the SWAC’s co-hitters of the week after hitting 6 for 7 with 6 RBI, 4 runs and 3 walks in the three-game series against GSU. She drove in 5 runs in the 7-6 win, hitting a 3-run home run and 2 RBI doubles.
UAPB will need that kind of hitting against a Southern team with the fourth-best team ERA, 4.06, in the SWAC. Starting pitcher Miranda Roldan’s 2.85 ERA ranks fifth in the league.