University of Southern Indiana Women’s Golf junior Abbey Leighty (Mt. Carmel, Illinois) wrapped up the 2018-19 season for the Screaming Eagles with a t-34th performance in the NCAA II East Super Regional.

Leighty shot a 239 for the tournament with improving round scores of 82, 81 and 76. Her three-round performance improved four strokes from last year’s Super Regional, while the 76 is her best round in NCAA action.

USI Women’s Golf was represented in NCAA postseason play for the 17th consecutive year with Leighty’s attendance. The NCAA II East Super Regional closes the book for the Eagles this season.

University of Southern Indiana senior second baseman Claire Johnson (Pittsboro, Indiana) and junior pitcher Jennifer Leonhardt (Louisville, Kentucky) have been named to the D2CCA Softball All-Midwest Region first team in a vote by the region’s sports information directors.

Johnson is earning All-Region honors for the first time in her career, while Leonhardt is collecting D2CCA All-Region honors for the third consecutive season after earning Midwest Region Pitcher of the Year laurels as a freshman in 2017 and second-team All-Region honors as a sophomore last year.

In 2019, Johnson is hitting .371 with 11 doubles, five triples, four home runs and 32 RBIs. She leads USI with a .472 on-base percentage, 23 walks, 46 runs scored and a .579 slugging percentage.

Johnson was a unanimous first-team All-Great Lakes Valley Conference honoree in 2019 and was named GLVC Player of the Week earlier in the year.

The 2019 GLVC Pitcher of the Year and unanimous first-team All-GLVC selection, Leonhardt is currently 19-8 with four saves, a 1.35 ERA, .191 opponent batting average and 220 strikeouts. She has tossed 11 complete-game shutouts and two combined shutouts, and passed Brooke Harmening ’15 for first-place all-time at USI in career strikeouts (688).

Leonhardt, who is tied with Harmening first first-place all-time at USI with 74 career wins, also has gotten the job done at the plate, where she is hitting .366 with 11 doubles, a triple, a home run and 30 RBIs. She also has 15 sacrifices on the year.

Both Johnson and Leonhardt advance to the national ballot for All-America consideration. The duo has helped lead the Screaming Eagles into their fifth straight NCAA II Tournament appearance and sixth in the last seven years.

USI (33-19), which won the national championship a year ago, begins the NCAA II Midwest Region #1 Tournament Thursday at 1:30 p.m. (EDT) when it takes on Wayne State University in the opening round in Allendale, Michigan. USI, which is receiving votest outside the latest NFCA Top 25 Coaches’ Poll, is looking for its third straight Midwest Region title.

After scoring four runs in their previous three exhibition games, the Otters were able to score six in the first three innings Wednesday, en-route to an 8-2 win over the Black Sox.

An RBI single by Mike Rizzitello scored Justin Erby and put the Otters on the board in the second inning.

The Otters then blew the game wide open in the third.

Taylor Lane hit a two-run RBI double, Rizzitello smacked another RBI single to give him two on the day, and Erby added another RBI single as part of a five-run third inning to give the Otters a commanding 6-1 lead.

After the Black Sox scored another run in the seventh, the Otters added two more runs in the ninth on an RBI double from Anthony Maselli and a sac fly from Hunter Cullen.

Wednesday’s game was also Education Day, where a large number of students and teachers from elementary to high school levels from the Evansville area came out and supported the Otters at Bosse Field.

With the preseason in the books, the Otters will turn the page and look forward to opening the 2019 Frontier League regular season when they face the Southern Illinois Miners on Friday, May 10 at 6:35 p.m. from Bosse Field.

Tune into Friday’s game on 91.5 FM WUEV and the Otters Digital Network via YouTube while following the Otters’ Facebook and Twitter Pages for all the latest scores and updates. David Nguyen will have the play-by-play along with Bill McKeon as the analyst.

University of Southern Indiana Baseball rose to ninth in the third and final NCAA II Midwest Regional poll of 2019. USI was a part of a GLVC contingent that featured six league teams to be ranked in the poll.

The top eight teams — three automatic conference qualifiers and five at-large – will be selected for to the NCAA II Midwest Regional, scheduled for May 16-19, that will be split into two four-team sub-regionals this season. The winners of the four-team regionals advance to a super-regional that will be hosted by the highest remaining seed May 24-26.

The Eagles start post-season action this week in the GLVC Tournament as the sixth-seed and takes on third-seeded Missouri University of Science & Technology Thursday at 12:30 p.m. Game coverage of USI in the GLVC Tournament can be found on GoUSIEagles.com.

It was a tale of two games at Charles H. Braun Stadium Tuesday night, as the University of Evansville baseball team fell to Murray State in a midweek non-conference match-up, one that the Aces would lose 6-4.

Evansville senior left-hander Alex Weigand took the hill and came out on fire, striking out a pair in the opening frame. The southpaw would go onto strike out six across three innings of work.

The Aces got the jump on the Racers on the offensive side early as well. Senior left fielder Matthew Jones laced an RBI single to left in the first inning, driving in junior shortstop Craig Shepherd, giving Evansville a 1-0 lead.

UE would build on that lead in the second inning, as a Craig Shepherd sacrifice fly to right drove in freshman second baseman DannyBorgstrom from third, doubling the Aces lead to 2-0.

In the fourth, Evansville would add to its pad, as three walks loaded up the bases with one out for Craig Shepherd, who again came through with a sacrifice fly, this time scoring freshman designated hitter A.J. Fritz from third, and the Aces lead grew to 3-0.

Freshman right-hand reliever Sam Steimel would come in relief of Weigand and pitch a pair of perfect innings. However, after getting two outs in the sixth, Murray State put a pair aboard, and Steimel gave way to fellow newcomer Garrett Presko, who would get greeted to the game with a 2-run triple by Brock Anderson, cutting the Aces lead to 3-2. Presko would allow two runners on in the seventh, and was replaced by freshman righty Shane Gray, who gave up a single to left, knotting the game up at 3.

Gray would give way to freshman left-hander Michael Parks (2-2) in the eighth, who was tagged for three runs, before being lifted for senior righty Austin Allinger, who would put out the fire. Still, the Aces trailed 6-3.

Evansville would get one back in the bottom of the frame, as a wild pitch allowed Matthew Jones to race home, cutting the deficit to two. However, Aces would draw no closer.

The loss dropped Evansville to 21-23 on the season, while Murray State improved to 20-25.