MOREHEAD, Ky. – Morehead State softball coach
Megan Griffith has elected to cancel the team's scheduled Tuesday home doubleheader against Youngstown State citing injuries and schedule overload among the reasons.
Weather forced the Eagles to have to shift their Ohio Valley Conference home series with Southeast Missouri from Saturday-Sunday to Sunday-Monday, which pushed up against the Youngstown State twin bill.
"Because of a depleted roster, due to injuries and other factors, and the fact that we would be playing five games in three days, we have decided to cancel the home doubleheader against Youngstown State," Griffith said. "With so few days remaining in the season and the lack of open dates available to both teams, there were no other workable options. Their coach was understanding of our predicament and gracious about our request to back out of the doubleheader."
According to Griffith, both coaches agreed that adjusting the schedule to another day this week was impractical due to the negative impact it would have on both teams' road trips for conference series this upcoming weekend.
It marks the third set of games MSU has cancelled or postponed this season, including last Wednesday's twin bill with archrival Eastern Kentucky. Those outings will be made up on Tuesday, April 30. The Eagles also had one contest of a scheduled three-game home series with Bowling Green lost to weather.
Morehead State opened the 2023-24 academic year with 21 players but is down to just 16 on the active roster. To date, seven Eagle players who have dressed this spring have missed a total of 68 games for various reasons, which breaks down to an average of 2.19 per game. That group includes freshman pitcher
Cassiti Baroni, freshman outfielder
Maddy Christopher and sophomore infielder
Emily Williams, who have each missed double-digit numbers of contests. Christopher and Williams remain out.
Morehead State (10-21) and Youngstown State (26-12) have met five times, including nearly two months ago (February 17), when the Eagles defeated the Penguins 4-2 at the Pinnacle PC Invitational in Clinton, S.C. MSU leads the all-time series 3-2.
The Blue and Gold's next outings will include a road doubleheader with UT Martin on Saturday at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET, and then a single contest with the Skyhawks on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET. The Eagles will next be in Morehead for what is now a five-game home stand from April 27-30, beginning with a doubleheader against Eastern Illinois.
