Game Notes 

Season Statistics 

C-USA Stats 

DENTON - With just six Conference USA games remaining in the regular season, crunch time has begun for the North Texas softball team.

“We just need to take care of the little things,” freshman pitcher Hope Trautwein said. “Every out is an important out. Every routine play needs to be made. The coaches prepare us for every scenario and we just need to execute.”

UNT embarks on its last roadtrip to begin the final stretch with a three-game series at Southern Mississippi. The Mean Green (22-23, 8-9 C-USA) and Golden Eagles (18-31, 7-11 C-USA) face off in a double-header at 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday and wrap up the weekend series at noon Sunday at the Southern Miss Softball Complex in Hattiesburg, Miss.

“We put ourselves in a position where these last two weeks are imperative,” head coach Tracey Kee said. “All we can do is focus on this weekend one game at a time, take care of business and get our own game going.”

At 8-9 in league play, the Mean Green are third in the West Division and tied with Middle Tennessee for seventh place overall. With just two series to go, the only certainty in the standings is that North Texas can't catch LA Tech at 15-6.

“We know we can only control what we do,” Trautwein said. “We can only control our effort and focus. As long as we play our game in these last six games, we’re unstoppable.”

While there aren't many scenarios to be clinched before the final weekend, the Mean Green can clinch a conference tournament berth with a sweep of Southern Miss, UAB sweeping UT San Antonio and Middle Tennessee sweeping UTEP. But for Kee and her players, their games are the only ones that matter.

“With a young team, you need to address it let them know the sense of urgency,” Kee said. “They’ve felt it since we got to conference play. If we do what we’re capable of, we don’t need to rely on other people down the stretch.”

Sophomore infielder Lacy Gregory has been a leader among the offense in conference play with team-highs in average (.370), hits (20), doubles (3), total bases (29) and OBP (.414). She has a hit in each of her last five C-USA games and is batting .407 since April 8, raising her overall average to .311.

“I’m just trying to produce runs for the team,” Gregory said. “The coaches prepare us so well, and getting to see live pitching during the week is nice.”

For the first time since the opening week of March, North Texas was deprived of a mid-week contest against No. 3 Oklahoma by Mother Nature on Wednesday after the coaches mutually agreed on Lovelace Stadium's unsuitable conditions.

“We still took advantage of Wednesday and watched some film,” Gregory said. “We were really looking forward to playing OU, but I don’t think it’s going to be a negative.”

Against the Golden Eagles, UNT looks to snap a six-game skid and get its versatile offense back on track. Since April 14, the team has a slash line of .228/.337/.304, down from their season slash line of .282/.353/.460.

“We’re preparing like we would normally prepare,” Gregory said. “We’ve watched some film on them and watched our at-bats from last season. We’re just focused on getting the offense going.”

The Mean Green offense had no issues in the last meeting with Southern Miss, scoring nine runs on 12 hits in a 9-6 win to take the series and give North Texas a 5-4 lead in the all-time series. Lindsay Gregory became the 11^th player in program history to record a four-hit performance in the victory.