NCAA Marshall Regional Begins Thursday

WEEKEND BASICS

• The No. 8 Texas Lutheran softball team has been tabbed the No. 2 seed in the 2023 NCAA Marshall, Texas Regional hosted by East Texas Baptist University at Jason Bell Park at Taylor Field, May 18-20.
• It marks the ninth straight season the Bulldogs (38-6, 19-2. SCAC) have been to the NCAA Tournament. This will be the first time the Bulldogs will have to go on the road for the regional round since 2019.
• The four-team, three-day event features the Bulldogs taking on the Belhaven Blazers (29-11) in a rematch of the 2022 Seguin Super Regional at 2 PM on Thursday before No. 7 East Texas Baptist (38-5) takes on SUNY Geneseo (25-16-1) at 4 PM.
• Thursday's winners will square off in the first of three games Friday at 12 PM, while Thursday's losing teams will face off in an elimination game for game two (2:30 PM) of Friday's tripleheader. The loser of Friday's first game will take on the winner of the day's second game in an elimination game Friday night (5 PM). The winner of Friday's final game will take on the winner of the day's first game on Saturday (12 PM) with a if-necessary rematch scheduled for later on Saturday.
• The winner of the 2023 Marshall Regional will advance to face the winner of the Belton Regional where Mary Hardin-Baylor (32-12) is hosting Berry (36-4), Rosemont (21-17), and St. Thomas (32-8) the following weekend in the NCAA Super Regional round with the goal of reaching the 2023 Division-III Women's College World Series which will also take place at Taylor Field in Marshall, Texas.
• All streaming and live stats links will be available on tlubulldogs.com as well as the Marshall Regional Website.
• Tickets will be $15 for adults, $10 for students and senior citizens (65 and older) - children five and under are free per day.
• After 44 games played, the Bulldogs are batting .340 as a team with 18 home runs, 314 runs scored - ranking fourth in Division-III - on 372 hits and 256 RBIs. They are outscoring opponents 314-60 with only 43 runs being earned. The team is slugging .449, holds a .424 on-base clip (11th in Division-III) and has swiped a Division-III leading 171 bases on 179 attempts.
• The pitching staff holds a 1.11 ERA, which ranks third in NCAA Division-III, and has 233 strikeouts, allowing opponents to bat just .176.
• The Bulldogs have won by run-rule in 18 of their 44 games (41% of games) and shutout in a Division-III leading 22 of their games (50% of games).

MAYHEM

• Texas Lutheran has made the NCAA Tournament every year since joining the SCAC in 2014, all under head coach Wade Wilson (tournament was not played in 2020).
• In 2022, Texas Lutheran made its third straight and overall DIII WCWS in program history, culminating in a third place finish.
• Texas Lutheran is 17-10 (.630) in NCAA Regional play with three Regional championships. In 2022, TLU won the NCAA Seguin Regional over Chapman.
• The Bulldogs are looking to make their third straight appearance in the Super Regionals. All-time, TLU has competed in three Women's College World Series, earning a National Championship in 2019.

A LOOK AT THE REGIONAL FOES

• The Bulldogs and Tigers last met in 2019 in the 2019 NCAA Marshall Regional, with TLU winning 6-1 led by a five-inning, four strike out performance from Kayla Oliveira and a 3-for-4, two-RBI performance from Skylar Ouellette. ETBU holds the all-time record over TLU, 14-5.
• TLU has met East Texas Baptist more than all but former NCAA Division-III member, UT-Tyler, in NCAA Regional play. The Bulldogs are 3-4 against the Tigers in regional history with the teams last meeting in 2019. The Bulldogs beat the Tigers 6-1 before beating Birmingham-Southern to advance to Super Regionals.
• SUNY-Geneseo, the automatic qualifier as the winner of the SUNYAC, would be a first-time matchup if the Bulldogs were to face the Knights.
• The Bulldogs and Blazers met for the first time ever in the 2022 Seguin Super Regionals with the Bulldogs taking both games at Ed Kruse Stadium.

LAST TIME OUT

• Then No. 5 ranked and top-seed Texas Lutheran Softball dropped its sixth game of the season in the SCAC Championship game on May 6, losing 2-1 to two-seed St. Thomas.
• It marks the Bulldogs first loss in the SCAC tournament title game and the first time TLU has not been both the regular season and tourney champs since joining the conference in 2014.
• Texas Lutheran became just the second team in SCAC Softball Championship history to lose its opening round game and then win three games in one day to then advance to the tournament final, joining the 2009 Rhodes team that first accomplished the feat.

PITCHING PACING THE NATION

• Texas Lutheran's pitching staff is not to be overlooked by their Top 10 scoring offense. The TLU staff of Ashlyn Strother, Amanda White (Lockhart/Lockhart), Sydney Ouellette (Corpus Christi/Gregory-Portland), Jaelin Ornelas (Amarillo/Caprock), and Katelyn Howard (Hempstead/Waller) are third in the country with a 1.11 ERA, allowing just 43 earned runs (60 R) in TLU's 44 games. Additionally, the staff holds an NCAA Division-III-best 22 shutouts on the season.
• Ashlyn Strother ranks third individually in Division-III with a 0.60 ERA.
• The staff has a combined 233 strikeouts, ranking in the top 20 in NCAA Division-III, in 272.0 innings pitched, a product of TLU's 18 run-rules.
• Senior Ashlyn Strother leads the group with 118 strikeouts in 117.1 IP, while White (83.2 IP) and Ouellette (64.0 IP) have 89 and 23 K's, respectively.
• Strother has three games with double-digit strikeouts, including a 13-K performance vs. Hardin-Simmons and 11-K showing at Trinity.
• The staff has thrown two no-hitters and one perfect game. Amanda White threw a no-hitter vs. Piedmont on March 8 and Strother threw her first perfect game on April 28 vs. Dallas.

TWO NAMED TO TUCCI/NFCA PLAYER OF THE YEAR WATCH LIST

• Two Texas Lutheran Softball student-athletes, freshman Caelee Clark (Montgomery/Lake Creek) and senior Ashlyn Strother, were named to the 2023 Tucci/NFCA Player and Pitcher of the Year Watch List, the NFCA announced in April.
• One of three freshmen representing the West Region (Region X), Clark has taken Division-III softball by storm in her first-year campaign with the Bulldogs. Clark leads NCAA Division-III with 63 stolen bases on 64 attempts in 43 games played. Clark is batting .438 on the year, good for second in the SCAC, to go with a .530 on-base percentage, leading the SCAC. She leads the team with 29 walks, which ties for tenth in all of NCAA Division-III. Clark has started all 44 games at second base for the Bulldogs with 81 putouts and 43 assists.
• A two-time All-American and NCAA record holder, Ashlyn Strother has had another season for the record books in 2023. Last month, Strother became TLU's all-time career wins leader securing her 59th career against Southwestern, Strother's career record now sits at 63-4. In 117.1 innings pitched, Strother has a 0.60 ERA with 118 strikeouts to 17 walks. Her earned run average ranks third in the country while sitting at fourth in the country with eight shutouts. She has allowed just 10 earned runs on the season (19 runs total) and is allowing opponents to bat just .153. Strother has surrendered just 15 extra base hits this season.

MORE NOTES & NUMBERS

• Texas Lutheran has won 83 of its last 95 games dating back to the start of the 2022 season.
• The Bulldogs have held opponents to one run or fewer in 32 of 44 games.
• The pitching staff has sacrificed just 43 earned runs on the season to opponents. Individually, two Bulldogs, Caelee Clark and Madison Johnson, have scored 43 or more runs.

RECORD BREAKERS AND RECORD CHASERS

• Freshman Caelee Clark is nine hits shy of the single season hits record (69) set by Ashley Jacobsen in 2013.
• Caelee Clark is also seven runs shy of the single-season runs record (62) and one walk shy of the single-season walks record (30) both set by Kelly Jurden in 2021 and 14 stolen bases shy of Jurden's stolen base record (77) set in 2022.
• Serena Gonzalez set the TLU single-season RBI records with 56 so far this season, surpassing the previous record of 54 set by Taylor Yancey in 2016.
• Serena Gonzalez set the TLU freshman home run record with 10 homers and is two shy of the overall single-season record (12) set by Haley Padilla in 2021.
• Senior Kelly Jurden is three walks shy of matching her single season record of 30 walks in a season.
• As a team, Texas Lutheranbroke the program record for walks in a season with 167 so far this season.
• With two wins this weekend, Texas Lutheran will match the single-season wins record (43) set by the 2016 squad.
• Ashlyn Strother's current ERA of 0.63 would surpass the previous program record for lowest ERA in a season set by Taylor Grissom in 2015 (0.77 ERA).

BULLDOGS DOMINATE SCAC AWARDS

• Texas Lutheran softball collected all four end-of-the-year Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) awards and placed nine across the All-SCAC First and Second Teams. 
• Freshman Caelee Clark was named SCAC Player of the Year, while senior Ashlyn Strother was named SCAC Pitcher of the Year for the third consecutive season. Garnering Newcomer of the Year honors was freshman Serena Gonzalez (Corpus Christi/Foy H. Moody). The TLU coaching staff, led by TLU head coach Wade Wilson, was the choice for Coaching Staff of the Year, his third straight and eighth overall SCAC Staff (Coach) of the Year honor.
• Clark collects TLU's ninth straight SCAC Player of the Year award, winning the award every year since joining the conference in 2014. Clark is the eighth different Texas Lutheran student athlete in the last nine years to earn SCAC Player-of-the-Year honors. She becomes the first freshman to win the honor in program history and the first freshman to earn conference Player of the Year honors in program history in either the ASC or SCAC.
• The senior phenom and member of the Tucci/NFCA Pitcher of the Year Watch List, Strother, collects her third consecutive SCAC Pitcher of the Year honor. Her pitcher of the year honor is TLU's eighth since joining the SCAC and 10th overall since becoming an NCAA institution.
• Gonzalez, a first-year designated player from Corpus Christi, Texas, made her power presence felt immediately in the lineup for the Bulldogs. Nationally, her 56 RBI are currently tied for fifth in all of Division III and entering the NCAA Tournament the total is the second most in a single season in league history. Gonzalez became the program's single-season RBI leader, surpassing the previous record of 54 held by Taylor Yancey in 2016. Gonzalez is now two RBIs shy of the SCAC single-season record held by DePauw's Emma Minx (58, 2011). Her 10 home runs are the most by a first-year since Amy Hallett of DePauw smashed 10 in 2010, just two shy of the first-year record of 12 set by Stefanie Faith of Austin College in 2008. The 10 bases clearing drives are currently tied for the 10th best single season output in SCAC history. Gonzalez earned NFCA National Player-of-the-Week honors – as well as SCAC Player-of-the-Week honors – for games played the week of April 3-9 after batting .714 with three extra base hits, four walks, two runs scored and eight RBI in a three-game sweep of Southwestern. She is the fourth different Bulldogs to earn SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year accolades and the first since Casey Martin was honored back in 2019.
• Texas Lutheran head coach Wade Wilson wins his third consecutive SCAC Staff (Coach) of the Year award and ninth overall Coach of the Year honor - earning one in the American Southwest Conference prior to joining the SCAC - in his 12 seasons at the helm in Seguin. The 2023 TLU coaching staff is comprised of Wilson, TLU softball alums Kyla Lockley '18 and Sarah Metzer '22, Bobby Buchanan, James Fuqua, Jerry Miller, Scott Smith, and Ed Zarzabal.
• Of the 12 student-athletes that made up the All-SCAC First Team, four of the selections are Bulldogs: Caelee Clark, Serena Gonzalez, Linzee Leal, and Ashlyn Strother.
• Strother collects her third career First Team honor, while Clark, Gonzalez, and Leal were all named First Team honorees for the first time in their careers.
• Laura Hernandez (Missouri City/Ridge Point), Reagan Hillis (Cedar Park/Cedar Park), Bailey Hudgeons (Dripping Springs/Dripping Springs), Madison Johnson (Round Rock/Round Rock), and Amanda White (Lockhart/Lockhart) brought TLU's All-SCAC team total to nine as the quintet was named to the All-SCAC Second Team. Hillis, a transfer from Odessa College, earns All-SCAC honors for the first time in her career while Hernandez, Hudgeons, Johnson, and White all repeat as All-SCAC performers.

For more information on Texas Lutheran softball, follow the Bulldogs on Facebook (@txlutheransoftball), Twitter (@TLUsoftball), and Instagram (@tlu_softball) and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on Twitter, @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).