Live Stats

The Niagara softball team opens MAAC play this weekend with a doubleheader against Fairfield on Saturday, April 6 with the first pitch set for 1 p.m.

Saturday’s games will be just the fifth and sixth games the Purple Eagles have played since early March due to inclement weather forcing several postponements and cancelations.

The Purple Eagles are 10-13 in their MAAC season debut since 2001. Niagara split a doubleheader against the Stags (12-12, 1-1 MAAC) the last time it opened conference play against Fairfield on March 31, 2007, dropping the first game 4-3 before taking the second, 7-4.

Niagara enters Saturday with a 3-16 overall record after dropping all four games of back-to-back doubleheaders against Lehigh on March 23-24. The Purple Eagles lost by an average of just two runs in the four contests versus the Mountain Hawks.

Sophomore Amanda Werth leads all Niagara batters with a .326 batting average. Senior Alexis Wayne and junior Brittany Richberg are tied for a team-high 17 hits on the season.

Senior Becky Zill has been powerful from home plate in 2013 with four extra-base hits, 10 RBIs and a slugging percentage of .500, all are a team-best. Zill homered in the first inning of the second game of the March 24 doubleheader against Lehigh to put Niagara up 2-0, giving her 21 career home runs and sole possession of fourth place on Niagara’s all-time list, just three shy of third.

Junior Jennifer Sansano leads the Niagara pitching rotation, recording a 3.12 ERA while holding batters to a .259 batting average. Sansano currently sits in third place among MAAC pitchers in total strikeouts with 53, while her teammate, junior Kim Bryson  owns fifth place in the same category (32).

Fairfield owns the all-time record over Niagara, 17-25. The Stags are led by Lauren Liseth, whom has started all 24 games for Fairfield, recording 27 hits and 26 RBIs with a batting average of .458. Fairfield has four batters hitting better than .300 this season.

In the circle, Rae Ball leads the Stags with an earned-run average of 1.72 and has a 5-6 record in 15 appearances. The Fairfield bullpen has the lowest ERA of any team in the MAAC (2.70)

Fairfield has finished in the top five of the MAAC standings each season since 2008, including two regular season titles (2009, 2011) and back-to-back appearances in the tournament championship (2011, 2012).