Sunday-Friday, March 1-6, 2020 - The Spring Games, various locations in Florida
Invitational Preview: The Ohio Northern softball team opens its 2020 campaign Sunday at the Spring Games in Florida … The Polar Bears will play games against St. Benedict (Minn.) Neumann (Pa.), Eastern (Pa.), Bridgewater (Va.), York (Pa.), Misericordia (Pa.), Concordia-Moorhead (Minn.), St. Joesph's (Me.), Roanoke (Va.) and Chatham (Pa.) over the course of six days … Games will be played at one of three locations — Clermont, Kissimmee or Leesburg … Northern is fresh off a season that saw it finish with a 23-19 overall record, which included a 14-4 mark in Ohio Athletic Conference play … ONU's season came to a close in the OAC Tournament title game where it lost to Otterbein … The Polar Bears batted .337 as a team last season, and much of that production returns in 2020 … Senior Gabby Stewart — a second-team National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-Central Region selection and a first-team All-OAC honoree — hit .393 last season in 135 at-bats with four home runs, 10 doubles and a team-high 36 RBIs … Fellow senior Brady Guest, who was named second-team All-OAC last year, batted .359 in 131 at-bats with a team-best six homers, six doubles and 28 RBIs … Senior Alicia Swierz — who earned honorable mention All-OAC recognition in 2019 — logged 122 at-bats, hit .328 with one dinger, three doubles and 15 RBIs … Sophomore Rachel Hish (Gainesville, Va./Patriot) boasts the highest returning batting average … The first-team All-OAC award recipient hit .403 in 199 at-bats with one double and nine RBIs in 2019 ... Fellow sophomore, and second-team All-OAC representative, Abby Elliot (Loveland/Ursuline) rounds out the returnees who hit north of .300 after she logged a .317 average in 123 at-bats with six doubles and 18 RBIs … The Polar Bears owned a team ERA of 4.26 a year ago … Sophomore Stacey Walters leads that group after making six starts in 2019.
2020 Ohio Northern Returning Batting Leaders
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Batting Ave. |
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Hits |
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Runs |
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RBI |
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| 1. |
Hish |
.403 |
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1. |
Stewart |
53 |
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1. |
Hish |
29 |
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1. |
Stewart |
36 |
| 2. |
Stewart |
.393 |
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2. |
Hish |
48 |
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2. |
Stewart |
28 |
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2. |
Guest |
28 |
| 3. |
Guest |
.359 |
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3. |
Guest |
47 |
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3. |
Guest |
25 |
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3. |
Elliot |
18 |
2020 Ohio Northern Returning Pitching Leaders
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Wins |
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ERA |
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Strikeouts |
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| 1. |
Walters |
2 |
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1. |
Walters |
11.48 |
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1. |
Walters |
7 |
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All-Time Series: Ohio Northern owns all-time winning records versus Eastern (2-0), Misericordia (2-0), St. Joseph's (2-0) Neumann (1-0) and St. Benedict (3-1) … The Polar Bears have gone 3-3 all-time against Concordia and are 0-3 all-time versus York … Northern has never faces, Bridgewater, Roanoke and Chatham.
Head Coach Jackie Price: Price is in her fourth season at the helm of the Ohio Northern softball team … She owns an 80-43 record, a .650 winning percentage.
