Aces open play on Friday
 This weekend, the University of Evansville softball team stays a bit closer to home as the Purple Aces head south to Bowling Green, Ky. for the Hilltopper Spring Fling.
UE will take on Austin Peay, Dayton and host Western Kentucky in the tournament, which runs from Friday through Sunday. Evansville looks to halt a 10-game losing streak after starting the season at 2-1.
The offense for UE played much better in Chattanooga over the weekend, averaging 5.3 runs per game in the final three contests of the tournament. A pair of close games did not go the Aces way as they dropped a 9-6 game to Eastern Illinois in nine innings before falling by a 6-5 final to host Chattanooga in eight innings. Evansville’s top three hitters in the tournament were freshmen as Allison Daggett batted .357 while Elyse Hickey and Eryn Gould batted .313 and .286, respectively. Senior Brittany Hay blasted a pair of home runs in the 5-game tourney.
The top hitter through the first three weeks for UE has been freshman Eryn Gould, who was named the Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Week on February 12 after batting .600 at the Mardi Gras Classic. For the season, Gould is batting a team-high .378 while leading the team with two triples, 14 hits while tying Brittany Hay’s eight runs scored. Gould has added six walks on her way to reaching base 48.9% of the time.
The youth movement for the Aces continued at the Frost Classic as UE’s freshmen accounted for 12 of the teams 16 runs scored. Allison Daggett went 5-for-14 in the tournament to bat a team-high .357. Daggett heads to Bowling Green riding a 5-game hit streak as she upped her batting average from .118 to .226 on the trip to Chattanooga.
Elyse Hickey notched five hits in 16 plate appearances last weekend to up her season average to .214; she scored three runs and walked on three occasions at the Frost Classic. Hickey was 1-for-12 to start the season, but has notched five hits in the last 16 at-bats. Lindsay Renneisen checks in with a .189 batting average, but has been productive in other ways, reaching base 30.2% of the time while notching three home runs, 7 RBI and seven runs scored. Daggett, Gould and Renneisen have started all 13 of the Aces games thus far.
Leading Evansville with 12 RBI is senior Brittany Hay. She recorded a pair of home runs at the Frost Classic while hitting .278 and accumulating 11 total bases in the tournament. After playing in the infield last season, Hay has made the start in the outfield in all 13 games of the 2018 campaign. She currently has a 3-game hit streak and has notched a hit in 9 of the 13 games this year.
