On Deck for SEC Softball: February 13

The first weekend of the 2019 college softball season is in the books. Now, we will turn to our first batch of midweek games. Here’s what’s on deck today.

The 19th-ranked Texas A&M Aggies will welcome Prairie View A&M to Davis Diamond in College Station. The Aggies went 4-1 through their weekend slate, their one loss being a 10-2 5 inning rout at the hands of North Texas. They were otherwise dominant, scoring 51 runs in their four victories.

Kelbi Fortenberry, Haley Lee and Riley Sartain will look to build off prodigious performances. The trio went a combined 20-for-36 with 17 runs scored, six doubles, five home runs — three by Sartain — four walks and just one strikeout.

PVA&M is 3-1 on the year so far and Destinee Williams got off to a blistering start, posting a .556 average in her team’s first four games.

Elsewhere, the fourth-ranked Florida Gators are set to host the North Florida Ospreys in Gainesville. This will be the Gators’ home opener after playing in Tampa as part of USF’s Opening Weekend Invitational. UF swept the competition, as they’ll enter this game with a 5-0 record. Kelly Barnhill was Kelly Barnhill, as she won SEC Pitcher of the Week after a dominant start to the season.

The Gator offense was solid but there were not too many standouts. Danielle Romanello went .400 at the dish and her sidekicks Amanda Lorenz and Jordan Roberts were nearby. But, UF as a whole hit just .321 and scored only 33 runs. So they’ll have to hope their stellar pitching continues while their bats attempt to try and wake up.

North Florida went 0-2 in the UCF Knights Invitational, as their last two games were cancelled down in Orlando. The weather will call for more rain on Wednesday, so we’ll see if this game will even be played, and that would certainly put the ‘Spreys in a bind as they haven’t played a game since Saturday. They scored zero runs in their two losses to Ohio State and Minnesota, so they too will have to hope for better production.