THE TOURNAMENT
Tarleton earned the No. 4 seed in the Lone Star Conference Tournament in Kingsville, Texas and will take on No. 5 Cameron on Friday, May 3 at 1:30 p.m. at Hubert Field. The single-elimination conference tournament will take place on May 3-4. If the TexAnns win the opener, they will take on No. 1 Texas A&M-Kingsville on Friday at 6:30 p.m. The Championship game is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
Tarleton is sitting at No. 3 in the South Central regional rankings and appears primed to make its seventh NCAA regional tournament appearance in program history and third straight under third-year head coach Mark Cumpian. The winner of the LSC Tournament will receive an automatic bid into the national playoffs. The LSC occupies the top five spots in the regional rankings and six out of seven spots. Texas A&M-Kinsville is No. 1, followed by Texas A&M-Commerce (2), Tarleton (3), West TexasA&M (4), Cameron (5), and Angelo State (8). The eight teams chosen to represent the South Central region in the national playoffs will be named on Monday, May 6 at 9 a.m. CT on NCAA.com.
GAME COVERAGE
There will be live stats and video available for the games, courtesy of the home team. Kyle Crews will have the call on the flagship station of the Tarleton Sports Network presented by the North Texas Ford Dealers – 90.5 FM in Stephenville – and online at TarletonSports.com/ListenLive. Direct links can be found on the Official Tarleton Sports App, Game Day preview story and Game Day graphics on Tarleton’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, as well as on the team schedule page at TarletonSports.com. Follow @TarletonSports or @tarleton_sb on Twitter for links to coverage. Fans can also have access to all the links for every game by downloading the TarletonSports mobile app for iOS and Android.
SCHUTT SPORTS/NFCA DII PLAYER OF THE YEAR TOP 25 LIST
The National Fastpitch Coaches Association has announced the Top 25 finalists for the Schutt Sports/NFCA National Player of the Year award and Tarleton’s Georgia Capell has made the cut. The sophomore from Midlothian is enjoying arguably the greatest offensive season in the history of Tarleton Softball. Capell is hitting .404 with 61 hits, 55 runs scored, 16 doubles, and 18 home runs with 67 RBI. The 67 RBI have already broken Tarleton’s single-season record and she is currently in pursuit of five other program records – runs scored, slugging percentage, doubles, home runs and hits. She has a team-high 20 multi-hit games and 19 multi-RBI games on the season. Capell is the first player in program history to make the Top 25 list. She joined teammate Tanna Huie on the Top 50 watch list earlier this season. Capell, Huie and Katelyn Conlee (2016) are the only players in program history to be named to the Top 50 list. Capell is the first player in program history to represent Tarleton on the Top 25 list, which will be trimmed to the Top 10 finalists on May 8 and the National Player of the Year will be announced after the World Series on May 30.
PRESEASON ALL-AMERICANS
Jordan Withrow and Georgia Capell have been named 2019 Preseason All-Americans by Fastpitch News (FPN). Withrow was named an All-America Second Team pitcher while Capell earned honorable mention honors. Withrow is coming off the best year of her brief Tarleton career as a sophomore in 2018. As a sophomore, Withrow was an honorable mention All-American by FPN and the Lone Star Conference Co-Pitcher of the Year. She also earned all-conference and all-region recognition and was named the LSC Academic Player of the Year. Last spring, she became the first Tarleton pitcher in program history with over 200 strikeouts in a single season (252). Capell made quite the impression as she became the first freshman in program history to be named an All-American. She earned third-team honors from the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA). In her debut season, Capell was named the South Central Region and Lone Star Conference Freshman of the Year as well as all-conference and all-region.
WITHROW TABBED PRESEASON PITCHER OF THE YEAR
Jordan Withrow was named the LSC Preseason Pitcher of the Year after a sophomore campaign where she was the LSC Pitcher of the Year, an NFCA All-Region Second Team selection and FastpitchNews.com Honorable Mention All-American. Withrow went 26-6 in the circle with 221.1 innings of work and 252 strikeouts, becoming the first player in program history to strike out 200 in a single season.
AMONG THE NATION’S BEST
Georgia Capell has already established herself as one of the most dangerous hitters in the country in just her second collegiate season. Capell enters the weekend ranked among the top-10 national leaders in five different statistical categories. She leads the nation in RBI (67), second in the nation in home runs (18) and is No. 6 in the nation in home runs (0.36) and No. 3 RBI (1.34) per game. She is also No. 4 in the nation in total bases (131).
CHASING THE HOME RUN RECORD
Georgia Capell has already moved into sole possession of second place on the Tarleton home run list with 35 career long balls. She is one of four players in Tarleton history with 30 career long balls and joins Samantha Swanda (31) as the only TexAnns to hit 30 home runs in two seasons. Arianna Rodriguez is the program’s all-time home run leader with 41. With 18 home runs this season, she has tied Rodriguez’s 2012 record for single-season home runs.
THE NEW QUEEN OF Ks
Jordan Withrow became Tarleton’s new strikeout queen by passing Carla Gesslin (521) for the all-time record last weekend in Portales. Withrow enters the weekend series with 557 strikeouts, including 202 this season.
LAST TIME OUT
Tarleton took two out of three games against then-No. 6 West Texas A&M at home to close out the regular season schedule. It was the second series win over a ranked opponent this season (No. 20 Angelo State).
INSIDE THE SERIES
Tarleton took two out of three games in the season series against Cameron in Lawton, Oklahoma. Since they first played in 1996, Tarleton is 32-15-1 against the Aggies. They also hold a 10-3 edge on a neutral field, where the LSC tournament will take place.
UP NEXT FOR TARLETON
If Tarleton wins two games on Friday, the TexAnns would advance to the Lone Star Conference Tournament Championship game at 2 p.m. on Saturday in Kingsville. The NCAA South Central Regional Tournament is scheduled for May 9-11 at the site of the highest seed in the region. For more information on the Tarleton Softball program, follow @tarletonsball on Twitter.
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