Softball Travels to Notre Dame for Tuesday Tune Up

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State wraps up the early season portion of its non-conference schedule on Tuesday, March 19 when it meets Notre Dame at 5:00 p.m. from Melissa Cook Stadium. Tuesday night's game will be streamed on ACC Network Extra, which can be accessed through ESPN+ with a cable subscription.

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ABOUT NOTRE DAME
Notre Dame is 16-10 overall and is No. 73 in the NCAA RPI heading into Tuesday night. The Fighting Irish opened ACC play last weekend taking two-of-three from Georgia Tech, winning 6-3 and 6-5 in games two and three. Notre Dame fell to Georgia Tech in the series opener, 7-5. By RPI, Notre Dame's best win this season came over current RPI No. 55, Liberty (3-0, Feb. 11, 2024). The Fighting Irish share one common opponent with Michigan State, defeating Marshall, 6-4, on March 8.

Michigan State is 1-11 all-time against Notre Dame, losing six straight overall and going 0-5 in South Bend. MSU last defeated Notre Dame on April 6, 1995 by a final score of 4-0 in East Lansing. The teams met last season when Notre Dame defeated Michigan State, 8-0, at Secchia Stadium.

This is the third time in program history that Notre Dame and Michigan State have shared a consecutive season series. The two sides played twice in each of 1993, '94 and '95, and once in each of 2012, '13, '14, '15 and '17.

Notre Dame is #57 nationally in batting average (.305), #239 in ERA (4.86), #49 in OBP (.390) and #52 in scoring (5.58).

Notre Dame's lineup boasts five players hitting above .300 and one (Emily Train) hitting .418. Carlli Kloss (.386) and Karina Gaskins (.383) are hitting above .380. Addison Amaral hits .349 with a team-best seven home runs, 15 extra-base hits and 31 RBIs.

Pitching has been Notre Dames' achilles heal with a 4.86 team ERA, lead by Micaela Kastor's 4.54 ERA through 61.2 innings pitched. Opponents are hitting .323 versus Kastor this season. The Spartans could also see Shannon Becker (4.56 ERA, 35.1 IP) or Alexis Laudenslager (5.19 ERA, 59.1 IP).

WEEKEND IN REVIEW
Michigan State went 1-3 at the Garnet & Black Invitational last weekend in Columbia, S.C., defeating B1G foe Minnesota in walk-off fashion (5-4), and falling to #22 South Carolina (8-0, 5 inn.), NC State (3-1) and #24 Boston University (3-2, 9 inn.).

The Spartans trailed 4-0 to Minnesota heading into the bottom of the seventh on Friday using a two-run homer by Jenae Wash and a three-run shot from Hannah Hawley to take down the Golden Gophers. MSU's win over Minnesota was at the time Michigan State's second victory of the season over a Top 50 RPI team (No. 48), but Minnesota dropped to No. 58 this week. The other win being over current RPI No. 43, Boise State (8-5, Feb. 17, 2024).

MSU led the ranked Boston University Terriers, 2-0, going into the seventh inning on Sunday, but BU completed the comeback in nine frames.

PRODIGIOUS POP
Michigan State softball has already hit 29 home runs this season through 25 non-conference games, which marks the most home runs by the program since the 2019 season (39 in 50 games). In 2024 Michigan State ranks No. 26 nationally in home runs per game (1.16). The Spartans need 34 home runs to crack the program Top 10 for single-season home runs.

2024: 29 in 25 games
2023: 17 in 46 games
2022: 25 in 52 games
2021: 16 in 40 games
2020: 9 in 22 games

UP NEXT
Michigan State opens B1G play this upcoming weekend, March 22-24 in Evanston, Ill. at Northwestern. Northwestern is 11-7 overall, but is No. 38 by RPI after ranked wins over Boston (2-0) and South Carolina (4-3) last weekend. The Wildcats rank #177 nationally in batting average (.258), #28 in ERA (2.14), #47 in OBP (.391) and #77 in scoring (5.06).

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Players Mentioned

Hannah Hawley

Jenae Wash