BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Blazer Softball begins its final regular season series of the 2026 season on Thursday, April 30,\u00a0at Florida Atlantic. The Blazers currently sit one game ahead of last-place Memphis, but hold the tiebreaker over the Tigers, meaning UAB just needs to avoid being swept by Florida Atlantic and Memphis picking up three wins at Wichita State to remain in position for the eight-seed\u00a0versus nine-seed\u00a0matchup in the first round of the American Championships next weekend.<\/p>\n
UAB is currently two games behind Tulsa for the eight-seed, with Tulsa holding the tiebreaker. The Blazers would need to sweep the Owls,\u00a0then have Charlotte sweep Tulsa in order to gain the “home team” advantage in the 8-9 game.<\/p>\n
The Blazers are all but guaranteed to play Tulsa in the opening round, as Tulsa sits two games behind UTSA, and three games behind Florida Atlantic and Charlotte. Tulsa would need to sweep Charlotte and get some help from multiple other teams to climb to seventh-place or higher.<\/p>\n
Notes to Know
\n
\n<\/p>\n
Scouting the Owls<\/p>\n
Series History<\/p>\n
Around the American<\/p>\n
An Even Further Look Ahead<\/p>\n
\n\tUAB is coming off a four-loss week, starting with a 6-0 home loss to #2\/#3 Alabama, followed by a sweep to South Florida. The Blazers led 9-3 in the final game against USF, before losing 14-9.
\n\tSince moving to the lead-off spot, Ashlyn Shirah<\/a> has hit .439\/.508\/.789 with 25 hits in 57 at-bats. Shirah has 18 RBI, five doubles, seven walks, and six homers in the 17-game span.
\n\tOlivia Tindell<\/a> entered the starting lineup due to injuries. She hit her first career home run in the Blazers’ 13-1 win at Tulsa. Tindell had her seven-game hit streak snapped vs Alabama
\n\tUAB ranks 131st of 308 teams in the RPI. UAB is 0-7 in Quad-1 games, 2-7 in Quad-2, 6-6 in Quad-3, and 12-10 in Quad-4.
\n\tAshlyn Shirah<\/a> was dubbed an American Conference Honorable Mention on Apr. 6. Shirah hit .600 with four doubles against Samford and Memphis.
\n\tOlivia Cummings<\/a> was named an American Conference Honorable Mention last week, coming off a two-win week at East Carolina. Cummings allowed just two earned runs and one walk in 10 innings of work at ECU.
\n\tAshlyn Shirah<\/a> leads the Blazers with a .354 batting average and .551 slugging percentage, 38 RBI, seven doubles,\u00a0and eight homers.
\n\tFreshman Charlee Bennett’s<\/a> 33 walks are one away from the 3rd most in a single UAB season.
\n\tBennett leads the team with a .415 on-base percentage
<\/p>\n
\n\tFlorida Atlantic enters the series 31-18, including a 12-12 record in conference play.
\n\tThe Owls are 19-3 at home. Two of the Owls’\u00a0home losses came on a doubleheader against East Carolina.
\n\tSenior Jesiana Mora leads the Owls with a .400 batting average.
\n\tFive other Owls are hitting above .300, including Kylie Hammond, leading the team with nine home runs.
\n\t\u00a0Autumn Courtney leads the Owls with\u00a0143.2 innings pitched and a 2.44 ERA. The Owls boast a 3.25 team ERA, 2.5 points better than their opponents.
<\/p>\n
\n\tUAB trails the all-time series against Florida Atlantic, 5-14.
\n\tFlorida Atlantic swept the last series in Boca Raton, back in 2024. The Owls lead the series in South Florida, 4-2.
\n\tThe Owls are riding an eight-game win streak against UAB.
<\/p>\n
\n\tSouth Florida and Wichita State enter the final weekend tied for first place. The Bulls hold the tiebreaker over the Shockers with their 2-1 series victory in Tampa.
\n\tSouth Florida hosts North Texas for its final series. Wichita State hosts Memphis.
\n\tWith the ladder format of the American Championships, every seed matters. North Texas (14-10), East Carolina (13-11), Florida Atlantic (12-12), and Charlotte (12-12) all battle for the three and four seeds to receive a double bye into the quarterfinal.\u00a0
<\/p>\n
\n\tUAB heads to the American Championships next week, almost guaranteed to play in the eight-seed vs nine-seed game at 9 a.m. CT on Wednesday, May 6. With a win, the Blazers would play the five-seed at 4 p.m. CT the same day.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Blazer Softball begins its final regular season series of the 2026 season on Thursday, April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-251748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}