ANGOLA, IND.-- The Trine softball team is ranked first in the Central Region in the first NCAA Regional Rankings, released Thursday.
The Thunder top the region with a 28-1 record. Trine is riding a 27-game winning-streak and a 42-game win-streak in conference games. The Thunder are 4-0 against teams ranked within the region, with sweeps of Case and DePauw. Trine most-recently swept a pair of games from Albion in which the team hit seven home runs and Carly Searles (Levering, Mich./Petoskey) became the school's all-time leader in hits. The NCAA Regional Rankings are used to determine seeding in the NCAA Regional Championships. The rankings reflect games played through Monday.
Click Here for NCAA Regional Rankings
As of the most-recent NCAA Statistics report released Monday, Trine ranked fourth in the nation in scoring, ninth in slugging percentage, and 18th in both stolen bases and triples per game.
Searles leads the nation in triples per game and is second in triples, while also ranking fifth in runs per game. Kaitlyn Clark (Mount Juliet, Tenn./Wilson Central) entered the week 11th in the nation in home runs and 15th in RBI's per game. Junior pitcher Bree Fuller (Hubbardston, Mich./Fulton) entered the week 10th in strikeouts per game and 14th in strikeouts overall.
Trine will travel to Calvin for a showdown this Saturday at 1:00 p.m. The Knights are in second-place in the MIAA with a 6-2 league mark. Calvin's 18-8 overall mark is good enough for third in the Central region.
With a sweep, the Thunder could tie the all-time mark for consecutive-MIAA wins with 44. Alma set that record with 44-consecutive league wins between the 1997 and 2000 seasons.