MARSHALL, Texas – Following a sweep of shutouts against the Belhaven University Blazers, the East Texas Baptist University softball team will continue their home stand as they host Louisiana College. ETBU is currently 11-0 and 8^th in the latest NFCA National Poll.
 
The last series, played on Saturday and Monday, brought personal achievements for the Tigers in their sweep against BU. While outscoring the Blazers 21-0, with two 8-0 wins and a 5-0 shutout, the series saw pitching excellence by Beatriz Lara. In two games, Lara pitched 11 innings allowing just one hit while striking out 13. This included her first no-hitter on Monday, which she struck out for batters. Lara won the first game of the series going six innings with nine strikeouts and holding BU to one hit. This performance would help garner her second ASC weekly award. Offensively, Daniella Solis would homer twice and drove in four RBI while Hannah Garcia notched six hits and four RBI during the series.
 
Solis remains on top of ETBU's categories in batting average (.588), runs scored (11), hits (20), and RBI (12) while sharing the homer lead with Mackenzie Anderson at five each. Lara currently has seven wins with a 1.60 ERA and 43 strikeouts to lead all pitchers.
 
ETBU's three wins against BU also added to head coach Janae Shirley's win total as she received her 400^th career win. Although Shirley was pleased with her team's performance on the day, there were a few members that she credits all her success to. "It's cool to see how excited the players were," said Coach Shirley. "All those girls are a huge part of the success that we as a program were able to have. All the players in the past have given ETBU and myself an opportunity to coach them. I was really fortunate as a young coach at 23 to be given an opportunity by Coach Reeves at the time and our administration in Dr. Riley to take a chance on me. I was very fortunate for twelve years to have Coach Bill Galloway as an assistant to this day. He has really helped me grow as a coach. I kind of got on the job training at 23 because I was definitely not ready to be in that position but he helped get me there. He is a huge credit to the success we have had here to our program and I can't say enough about what he's done for me as a mentor, assistant coach, and friend. Our program would not be where it's at had he not been in position to help guide me and guide our players. So I'm super thankful for that."
 
ETBU will look to continue their hot start against LC, who enters this weekend with a 6-1 record overall and a 2-1 conference record. This comes after LC won the series against Howard Payne University. ETBU won their last regular season series a year ago taking two of three games in Pineville, La. Jade Brady (12 hits, nine RBI, two HR) and Shelby Bergeron (four RBI) both have a .500 batting average while Sami Walters also has 12 hits and four RBI to go with a .480 batting average. In the circle, Sarah Gartman has won five starts and posts a 2.78 ERA allowing 11 runs on 23 hits while striking out 25.
 
ETBU will begin the series on Friday night with a doubleheader at 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM while Saturday's finale begins at 2:00 PM with the Military Appreciation Game.