MOREHEAD, Ky. – Coming off its longest win streak in approximately one calendar year, the Morehead State softball team hits the road for a single game against Marshall on Wednesday. The contest will take place at Dot Hicks Field in Huntington, W.Va., at 3 p.m. It is the first of what is slated to be a six-game road swing for the Blue and Gold.

Morehead State (5-27/4-12) swept three home games this past weekend against SIU-Edwardsville, with 7-0 and 4-2 victories on Friday, and an 8-4 win on Saturday. The Eagles entered the series having won just six percent of the home games in the series and 11 percent of the overall contests. The numbers against Marshall are similar – 21 percent overall and 18 percent on the road. Can they recapture the form they showed against the Cougars and replicate the feat on Wednesday?

"(Marshall) can be very competitive. (They've) got some great pitchers, got some big power hitters," MSU head coach Samantha Jones said Saturday evening. "But, again (we need to keep) sticking to our game, sticking to what we know. (We will) continue to work on our individual approaches on Tuesday and continue to bring that solid defense behind our pitchers (on Wednesday)."

ESPN+ will be televising the game, which can be seen at the link: https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/5fbb0111-11a0-47a0-86ea-84912666975a?om-navmethod=espn%3Aglobalsearch%3Aresults. Live stats are also available and can be found at the following link: https://herdzone.com/sidearmstats/softball/summary. The game can also be heard via radio on the link: https://www.marshall.edu/wmul/.

Morehead State notched numerous significant accomplishments with the sweep over SIUE, including winning its first ever series against the Cougars, posting a 3-0 series record against an Ohio Valley Conference opponent for the first time since 2016, and winning three consecutive home games for the first time since reeling off 13 in a row in a stretch that spanned from the end of the 2016 season through the first seven and a half weeks of the 2017 campaign.

However, the Eagles are 0-21 away from home this year and have dropped their last 26 straight contests when they played outside of Morehead. The squad's last victory away from home came on April 17, 2021, with a 3-1 win over UT Martin in Martin, Tenn.

The Eagles raised their team batting average 13 points to .215 after this past weekend's performance. Junior outfielder Maddi Gailor falls just short of meeting the NCAA statistical qualifying standard of two plate appearances per game and having played in 75 percent of the team's contests. However, she leads the squad in most offensive categories, including batting average (.317), hits (20), doubles (five), RBI (16), slugging percentage (.397) and stolen bases (nine). She enters Wednesday having been on base in 12 of the last 13 games.

Junior infielder Kirya Kingery, who will be playing only a few miles way from her hometown of Ona, W.Va., has also come on of late. She is tops among the regulars in batting average (.274), slugging percentage (.355) and on-base percentage (.357). Like Gailor, she too has posted a long on-base streak, which has now reached 12 times in her last 14 outings.

Sophomore infielder Peyton Jordan had an outstanding weekend and finished fourth in the OVC's Player of the Week voting. Against SIUE, she batted .571 with four RBI, while also leading the defensive effort with a perfect mark in 15 chances. Senior catcher/infielder Peyton Slater sits among the national leaders in throwing out runners attempting to steal. Through Sunday, she was tied for fifth in Division I having caught 14 runners. Senior infielder Peyton Rose also ranks among the nation's best in times hit by a pitch at 0.42, which was fourth entering Monday.

Sophomore pitcher Lennon Spicer posted a 2-0 record and a 2.00 ERA over the weekend, adding seven strikeouts and just two walks in 14 complete innings. Those marks helped her finish third in OVC Pitcher of the Week voting. On the season, she owns a 4.89 ERA, a 3-13 record, with 65 strikeouts and 39 walks in 93 innings. Freshman Madi Ogden is second on the squad with a 1-8 record, a 5.19 ERA, plus 34 strikeouts and 40 walks over 59 and one-third innings.

The Eagles' weekend wins snapped a seven-game skid and they now have won their last three outings, which is the most since the club also defeated three straight opponents from April 7-17, 2021. They last won at least four consecutive games between March 2-9, 2018, when the club captured seven in a row.

Marshall (28-11) boasts a perfect 17-0 mark on Dot Hicks Field. The Thundering Herd won their last three games, defeating Florida International 6-2, 3-0 and 8-0 (in five innings) Thursday, Friday and Saturday, respectively, at home. Earlier in the week, the club split a road doubleheader with Northern Kentucky, taking the first game 3-2, while falling in the nightcap 5-4. Dating back to last April, Marshall has won 19 straight on its home field. Its last loss came against Florida Atlantic 11-9 in the first game of an April 17, 2021, doubleheader.

Junior Sydney Nester is the reigning Conference USA Pitcher of the Week. It was the sixth time she has won the award this season. She picked up three wins and a save last week, including shutting out the FIU Panthers twice. Nester is 20-5 this season with a 1.52 ERA. In 166 innings, she has 232 strikeouts to just 43 walks. Opponents are only hitting .180 against her. No other pitcher on the team has thrown more than 37 innings, which is junior Cailey Joyce's total. Joyce is 5-3 with a 5.68 ERA, 32 strikeouts and 12 walks. Freshman Bub Feringa (1-0 in 22.0 innings) and sophomore Brianna McCown (2-3 in 14.2 innings) have seen limited action, but have 1.91 and 2.86 ERAs, respectively.

As a team, the Thundering Herd are batting .327, with 51 home runs and 30 stolen bases. The first statistic ranks 13th in Division I. The club's biggest offensive threat is fifth-year first baseman Aly Harrell, who is averaging .457 at the plate (the nation's eighth-best mark), with seven homers and 27 RBI. Fifth-year infielder Saige Pye follows with a .381 batting average, 15 homers and 38 RBI; with senior right fielder Mya Stevenson at .353, with 14 homers and a team-best 41 RBI. Both Harrell and Stevenson have 11 doubles this spring.  Stevenson also leads the squad with seven stolen bases. Defensively, MU posts a .965 team fielding percentage.

Marshall leads the all-time series 30-8. The Thundering Herd have won the last three meetings and the most recent one in Huntington, 3-0, on April 11, 2018. MU also is 18-4 against the Eagles on its home field. Since 2012, Marshall has toppled MSU eight times in nine outings. MSU's most recent win was 3-2 on April 11, 2018 in Huntington.

The two teams first played in 1994 and had faced each other nearly every year until 2013. The series took a three-year hiatus, before resuming in 2017 and playing the succeeding two seasons. The squads have not met since 2019, when Marshall won a pair of five-inning contests on April 30 in Huntington, 11-1 and 11-3. Those were the only times coach Jones has faced the Thundering Herd while leading MSU.

Morehead State stays on the road for a weekend series at Belmont, which sits second in the OVC standings. The Eagles and Bruins are scheduled to play a Saturday doubleheader with the first pitch at 3 p.m. ET, followed by a single game on Sunday, which will start at 2 p.m. ET.

MSU's next home contests are on April 30, which will be the first two outings of a three-game series with Tennessee State.