PREVIEW
• Sacramento State (14-17, 1-2) will play its first Big Sky Conference road series this Friday-Saturday at Portland State (8-28, 1-2). The Hornets and Vikings will play a doubleheader on Friday at 2 p.m., followed by a Saturday matchup at 1 p.m. All three games will stream on ESPN+.
• The Hornets opened the conference season at home last week by taking one of three games against Idaho State. The Bengals are currently the Big Sky's highest ranked team with an RPI of 99.
• The Vikings opened on the road last week by dropping two of three games at Weber State.
• Sacramento State was supposed to play a road game on Tuesday at Pacific, but that game was rained out and rescheduled for April 16.
• The Hornets have not played a road game since March 8 when they fell at sixth-ranked UCLA. So, by the time Friday's game begins, Sacramento State will be playing its first road game in 27 days.
• Sacramento State's 2-1 win over Idaho State on Saturday ended an eight-game homestand. The Hornets have another eight game homestand beginning next week as the team's schedule is stacked with home tilts this season.
• Sacramento State is 7-7 when playing away from home, including a 4-4 mark on an opponent's home field. Of the team's four true road wins, three ended in mercy rule victories: 12-0 at Cal Poly, 10-2 at UC Davis, and 14-3 at Saint Mary's.
• In the Big Sky preseason poll, the Vikings were selected third (with one first place vote), while the Hornets were picked fourth.
• With 14 new players on the roster (over 50 percent of the team), that fourth place prediction was the lowest for the Hornets since the Big Sky's first year of softball in 2013. In addition, of Sacramento State's 26 players, 16 are underclassmen - 10 of which are freshmen.
• Portland State is 8-28 overall, including Tuesday's home doubleheader sweep of Western Oregon. The Vikings are 3-5 at home, and recently won one of three games vs. Pacific on March 22-23.
• Sacramento State is 59-30 in the all-time series vs. Portland State. The Vikings have won three straight in the series, however, after taking two of three in Sacramento a season ago, followed by a 9-7 Big Sky Tournament win in Ogden, Utah. That game eliminated the Hornets from the Big Sky Tournament.
• Despite being limited to just three runs over three games vs. Idaho State, the Hornets remain the Big Sky's best hitting team, leading the conference in batting average (.306), slugging percentage (.517), home runs (36) and doubles (47). The Hornets rank among the top 50 teams in the country in both home runs per game (40th, 1.16) and slugging percentage (41st, .517).
• Nearly the entire starting lineup is hitting above .300, including Andrea Lira (.378), Madison Evers-Lyles (.351), Lafulafu Malepeai (.347), Caroline Evans (.333), Katie Marsh (.315), Nikki Barboza (.313), Jenna Birch (.313) and Shannon Garcia (.306).
• The Hornets have played the last six games without senior and team captain Gwen Ludwig in the starting lineup, who is nursing an injury. Ludwig has been available as a pinch runner, and she currently has 43 career stolen bases. She needs just one stolen base to set the program's all-time record.
• Ludwig is a team captain along with Evans, Marsh and Malissa George.
• Back from injury last week was staff ace Caroline Evans. She started two of the three games last week vs. Idaho State, which included limiting the Bengals' high-powered offense to just one run and four hits over four innings in Sunday's 2-1 victory.
• Lira currently has a 12-game hitting streak, the second longest by a Hornet this season (Evers-Lyles had a 13-game streak). Lira is the only Hornet to start all 31 games this season, and amazingly, has hit safely in 26 of those games. That included an eight-gamer to begin the season.
• Sacramento State is 41-for-47 in stolen base attempts, and is inching closer to the program record of 53 stolen bases, set in 2019.