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CANYON, Texas – The #4 Lady Buffs make their seventh appearance in the NCAA Postseason this season as they host the South Central II Regional Tournament at Schaeffer Park in Canyon. WT will face off with Lone Star Conference rival Tarleton State on Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. in the double-elimination tournament.
 
TARLETON STATE
The TexAnns enter their fifth NCAA Tournament with an overall record of 35-20 after receiving an at-large bid from the Lone Star Conference.
 
After six seasons as the top assistant for the TexAnn Softball program, Mark Cumpian was named the third head softball coach in school history last Spring. Over his final two seasons as an assistant coach for Tarleton, Cumpian was the primary hitting instructor for the TexAnns and led Tarleton to back-to-back seasons of hitting over .300 as a team.
 
The TexAnns are led offensively by Nyka Wood who is hitting .387 this season with 18 doubles and four homeruns to drive in 58 RBI followed by Marisa Flores with eight doubles and two homeruns to drive in 22 RBI. In the circle, TSU is led by Haley Freyman who is 17-9 on the season with a 2.61 ERA with 20 complete games and seven shutouts to go along with 90 strikeouts in her 180.0 innings of work.
 
TSU is hitting .322 as a team to go along with 79 doubles, 11 triple, 17 homeruns and 252 RBI for a team slugging percentage of .421 with 60 combined errors for a fielding clip of .963. In the circle, TSU has a 2.63 combined ERA with 35 complete games and 245 strikeouts in 360.0 innings with an opposing batting average of .245.
 
THE SERIES vs. TSU
The Lady Buffs lead the all-time series against the TexAnns, 21-18 with TSU taking two of three meetings from the two teams earlier this season in Stephenville. Tarleton is 7-15 all-time in Canyon and 1-0 against WT at Schaeffer Park in the NCAA Postseason.
 
NFCA DIVISION II TOP-25 POLL (MAY 10)
Angelo State picked up 11 of the 16 first place votes for a total of 395 points followed by Harding (5 first place, 388), North Georgia (365), WT (347),  Cal State Monterey Bay (314), Minnesota State (310), West Virginia Wesleyan (289), Pfeiffer (276), Southern Indiana (273) and West Florida (260) to round out the top ten.
 
The South Central Region was represented by Angelo State (1st), WT (4th), Colorado Mesa (11th) and St. Mary's (20th).
 
WT SOFTBALL IN THE NFCA TOP-25 POLL
The Lady Buffs have been ranked inside of the NFCA Division II Top-25 Poll for 55 straight weeks. The Lady Buffs have been ranked in the Top-5 in 41 polls since the start of the 2014 season while sitting atop of the poll an incredible 29 times.
 
DII NATIONAL PLAYER OF THE YEAR FINALIST
West Texas A&M senior third baseman Shea Ibrahim has been named one of 25 finalists for the Schutt Sports/National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division II National Player of the Year Award.
 
The process began prior to the 2017 season as a Top-50 Watchlist was released followed by the release of the 25 finalists this afternoon, the NFCA offices will collect updated statistics for the 25 finalists following the completion of the regular season on Monday, May 1st followed by the announcement of the 10 finalists on Thursday, May 11th. Thursday, May 18th will see the release of the final three student-athletes in the running for the award and the winner will be announced the evening of Wednesday, May 23rd at the DII College World Series Awards Banquet in Salem, Virginia.
 
The Top-25 represent 23 different programs and 18 Division II conferences throughout seven of the eight DII regions. Sixteen student-athletes from the original Top-50 "Watchlist" made the cut with the final group consisting of 10 seniors, 11 juniors, two sophomores, one freshman and one graduate student.
 
HOME SWEET HOME
The Lady Buffs have turned Schaeffer Park into one of the top home environments in all of NCAA Division II Softball. WT is 197-30 (.868) at Schaeffer Park since the facility opened prior to the 2011 season including 85-14 (.859) during regular season Lone Star Conference games in Canyon. 2017 marks the sixth time in the last seven years ('11, '13, '14, '15, '16, '17) that the Lady Buffs will host NCAA Postseason action in Canyon.
 
LIVE COVERAGE
The West Texas A&M Athletic Media Relations Department will provide live stats and a webstream for this weekend's event. Fans can also follow the WT Athletics (@WTAthletics) Twitter account for live updates. For links and more information, visit the Lady Buff Softball schedule page at GoBuffsGo.com.
 
800 CAREER WINS
West Texas A&M head coach Kevin Blaskowski became the 26th Division II skipper with 800 career wins while being just the 12th active head coach to reach the milestone with a 3-1 victory in Game 1 against Midwestern State March 25th at Schaeffer Park.
 
NATIONALLY SPEAKING
Entering the weekend, WT leads all of Division II in home runs per game (1.92), on-base percentage (.472) and slugging percentage (.691)  while ranking second in batting average (.382), doubles per game (2.29) and double plays per game (.59) and scoring (8.39).
 
Hardin ranks eighth in the nation in doubles (20) and second in runs per game (1.27) while Kylee Moore is first in homeruns per game (0.38), fifth in homeruns (18) and seventh in slugging percentage (.882).
 
LADY BUFFS IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
The Lady Buffs are making their fifth straight and seventh overall appearance in the NCAA Division II Softball postseason.
 
Coach Blaskowski and the Lady Buffs are 25-14 all-time in the NCAA Postseason including 17-8 in games played at Schaeffer Park. WT is 5-2 in the College World Seris as they claimed the 2014 NCAA Division II National Championship and finished last season ranked fifth in the nation following their second trip to the Division II College World Series.
 
LSC TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS
WT stranded nine baserunners heading into the seventh inning in a hostile environment at Mayer Field in San Angelo, Texas but Tournament MVP Ashley Hardin connected on a two-run blast to left field with one out in the seventh to give WT their fourth overall and third straight LSC Tournament Title with a 2-1 thrilling win over the #1 Belles of Angelo State.