TLU Begins SCAC Championships Friday in San Antonio

WEEKEND BASICS

• No. 5 Texas Lutheran opens postseason play this weekend at the 2023 SCAC Championships at Trinity Softball Field in San Antonio, May 5-7.
• The Bulldogs will face the winner of Friday's 11 AM game between No. 4 seed Centenary and No. 5 seed and tournament host, Trinity, at 4 PM. The game can be seen on Trinity's Tiger Network on YouTube with Reed Rosales on the call.
• After 39 games played, the Bulldogs are batting .342 as a team with a SCAC-leading 18 home runs, 286 runs scored on 333 hits and 232 RBIs. They are outscoring opponents 286-56 with only 40 runs given up being earned. The team is slugging .455, holds a .424 on-base clip and has stolen a nation-leading 158 bases on 165 attempts.
• The pitching staff holds a 1.16 ERA, ranking third in NCAA Division-III, and has 218 strikeouts, allowing opponents to bat just .180 for the season and .168 in-conference.
• The Bulldogs have won by run-rule in 16 of their 39 games (41% of games) and shutout in 20 of their games (.512).

LAST TIME OUT

• No. 5 Texas Lutheran closed the regular season with a regular season sweep of Dallas, winning, 9-0, 9-1 and 10-0.
• With the series victory, TLU clinched its 9th straight SCAC regular season title. The Bulldogs have won 17 SCAC titles all-time (regular season and tournament combined).
• Pitcher Ashlyn Strother (Seabrook/Clear Falls) was named SCAC Pitcher of the Week after throwing the seventh perfect game in TLU softball history in the series opener. The perfect game was the first of her career and her third career no-hitter.
• The Bulldogs finished the regular season with a 35-4 record.

SCAC TOURNEY HISTORY

• Texas Lutheran won its eighth consecutive SCAC Championship crown in Irving last season, defeating Trinity by a final of 5-1.
• The Bulldogs have claimed eight straight SCAC Tournament titles.
• TLU is 23-1 at the SCAC Softball Championship Tournament and have not lost since 2016 (3-4, Trinity).
• TLU has gone undefeated and won the last five SCAC Championships. The tournament was not played in 2020 (COVID-19).

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 1.16 ERA, allowing just 40 earned runs (56 R) in TLU's 39 games. Additionally, the staff holds an NCAA Division-III-best 20 shutouts on the season.
• Ashlyn Strother ranks third individually in Division-III with a 0.53 ERA.
• The staff has a combined 218 strikeouts, ranking in the top 15 in NCAA Division-III, in 241.0 innings pitched, a product of TLU's 16 run-rules.
• Senior Ashlyn Strother leads the group with 112 strikeouts in 105.1 IP, while White (74.2 IP) and Ouellette (56.0 IP) have 84 and 19 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.

CONFERENCE DOMINANCE

• TLU finished the SCAC regular season 19-2 en route to winning its ninth consecutive regular season crown.
• The Bulldogs have won 83 of their last 86 SCAC regular season games. Their streak of 66 consecutive that ended in Shreveport that ended in March with a narrow loss to Centenary was the longest in conference and program history.
• TLU have won 58 consecutive conference series and have not lost a series since joining the SCAC in 2014.
• TLU has finished first in the SCAC over the past nine seasons with a combined record of 192-5.
• Overall, the Bulldogs have 17 SCAC titles with nine straight SCAC regular season crowns and eight straight SCAC tournament championships, all under head coach Wade Wilson.

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 61 stolen bases on 61 attempts in 39 games played. Clark is batting .445 on the year, good for second in the SCAC, to go with a .541 on-base percentage, leading the SCAC. She leads the team with 27 walks, which ties for fifth in all of NCAA Division-III. Clark has started all 39 games at second base for the Bulldogs with 71 putouts and 35 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 62-3. In 105.1 innings pitched, Strother has a 0.53 ERA with 112 strikeouts to 13 walks. Her earned run average ranks third in the country while leading the country in shutouts with eight. She has allowed just eight earned runs on the season (17 runs total) and is allowing opponents to bat just .159. Strother has surrendered just 11 extra base hits this season.

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).