Aces to play in Alabama this weekend
  Another trip south is up next for the University of Evansville softball team, who travels to Birmingham, Alabama for the Samford Tournament.
Evansville will face Western Kentucky, Houston Baptist, Samford and Jackson State in the tournament, which goes from Friday through Sunday. UE was slated to open its home slate next Wednesday against Purdue Fort Wayne, but that game has now been cancelled due to the anticipate weather.
Last weekend, weather also wreaked havoc on the squad. UE was set to travel to a tournament in Chattanooga, Tenn., but rain forced the venue to be changed to Carbondale, Ill. After dropping games to Ohio University and Saint Louis, Evansville rebounded for a 4-2 win over Creighton on Sunday.
Emily Lockhart picked up her third win of the season, going all seven innings while allowing two runs on five hits. Sophomore Eryn Gould had one of her best games of the young season, going 2-4 with two runs scored.
Gould batted .375 over the course of the weekend to lead the Aces. Katie McLean finished at .300 with three hits in 10 at-bats.
UE’s first opponent of the weekend is Western Kentucky.  The Hilltoppers are 10-2 on the season and picked up two wins over Missouri Valley Conference schools – Missouri State and Indiana State. Houston Baptist is the first game on Saturday. They are 5-6 overall and picked up a pair of wins against Arkansas-Pine Bluff last week.
Saturday’s second game will be against the host squad – Samford. The Bulldogs enter the weekend with a record of 5-12. Their top performance this season came two weeks ago at the Samford Classic where they went 3-1 with wins over DePaul, Eastern Illinois and Georgia State. UE wraps up the tournament on Sunday with a game against Jackson State, who is 2-16, but has won two in a row, taking both ends of Tuesday’s doubleheader against Belhaven University.
