Henderson State, along with seven other teams, will head to Bentonville, Arkansas this weekend in search of its first-ever Great American Conference Tournament title. The Reddies are the No. 7 seed in the eight-team field and face No. 2 seed Southern Arkansas at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday at Bentonville High School's Tiger Athletic Complex. Regardless of the result of game one, Henderson will play either the winner or loser of the No. 3 Arkansas Tech and No. 6 Southern Nazarene game at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, with the winner's bracket contest to be played at Tiger Athletic Complex and the loser's bracket game to be played at Memorial Park.
Against Southern Arkansas:
The Reddies are 1-3 this season against SAU after dropping a home series to the Lady Muleriders back on April 7-8. SAU took the first three games of the series, but Henderson rallied to take the final contest 6-1 against the then-No. 7 ranked Lady Muleriders.
Sydney Bonner had one of her best outings of the year in the victory, giving up just one run on six hits in 7.0 innings of work.
Henderson State Notes:
Henderson enters GAC Tournament play after dropping two games to Southern Nazarene last weekend in Bethany, Oklahoma. The Reddies are 23-31 on the season and 17-25 in GAC action. HSU has reached the conference tournament 12 times since the start of the program in 1999 and has won its first round game in each of the last four trips to the GAC Tournament. Henderson was the 2015 regular season champion of the GAC but fell to East Central in the tournament title game that year, which remains the furthest the Reddies have ever gone.
In 2016, the Reddies made a run to the semifinals after defeating Southeastern Oklahoma and top-seeded Arkansas Tech, but lost twice to SAU, the eventual champion.
HSU is batting .257 as a team and are led by lone senior
Keirsten Seahorn, who leads the team with a .322 batting average, 11 doubles, five home runs, and 35 RBIs. Junior
Courtney Warren has also been a key contributor at the dish for the Reddies this year, batting .316 with a team-high 56 hits and 16 multiple hit games.
In the circle, junior
Michelle Sorensen is the catalyst for Henderson and has a 15-14 record in 2017 with a 1.93 ERA. Sorensen has struck out 184 batters this year and has held opponents to a .185 batting average.
Sydney Bonner will also see action for the Reddies and has a 2.43 ERA in 103.2 innings pitched.
Southern Arkansas Notes:
The Lady Muleriders are 42-14 this season and 32-12 in GAC play. SAU is the No. 21 team in the country according to the NFCA DII Coaches Poll and are the No. 5 team in the latest Central Region Rankings.
SAU is led by Maddie Dow, who leads the GAC in batting average (.438), slugging percentage (.944), OBP (.615), home runs (20), and total bases (136). In the circle, Kaylee Garner is the go-to pitcher and has an impressive 20-2 record this year and a 1.74 ERA. As a team, SAU puts up incredible offensive numbers, and leads the league with 86 home runs, 347 RBIs and 838 total bases.
In 2016, the Lady Muleriders won the GAC Tournament by defeating Harding twice in a day, on their way to a College World Series birth.
