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GAME PROGRAM

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology softball team opens Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) play this Saturday, March 28, with a doubleheader against Defiance. 

The Fighin' Engineers enter the contest with a 9-3 record, Rose-Hulman's best start to a season since going 13-2 to begin the 2008 season. After returning to Indiana with a 7-3 record on the spring trip to Florida, Rose-Hulman swept Milwaukee School of Engineering 7-0 and 11-0 in five innings last weekend. In the series, freshman Jenny Miller went 2-3 in two games with one RBI and four walks. Senior Carly Heibel blasted her 17th career home run, a program best, to go along with four RBI.

Miller, who was honored as the HCAC's Hitter of the Week once this season, leads the team with a .438 batting average (minimum 10 at bats), a .571 on base percentage, and an .875 slugging percentage, and ten walks. Junior Marissa Stout has tallied 18 hits and carries a .429 batting average while Heibel has driven in 14 runs. 

Stout leads the team on the rubber, having pitched 31 innings this season. The Terre Haute South alumnae is 5-1 on the season and carries a 1.58 earned run average (ERA). Fellow junior Taylor Lockhart has pitched 28.1 innings this year and also has a sub-2.00 ERA, at 1.98. 

Defiance enters the game with a 4-10 mark. The Yellow Jackets opened HCAC play last weekend and dropped two games at Transylvania 2-0 and 4-2 in Lexington, Ky. 

Haley Patty leads the team in average batting a .324 clip (minimum 10 at bats) while Sarah Kaya carries a 3.27 ERA in 35.1 innings pitched.

Defiance leads the all-time series with Rose-Hulman 10-7, but the Engineers have won the last three meetings.

After the series with Defiance, Rose-Hulman travels to Blackburn the following day (Sunday) for a doubleheader scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.