The Lady Tigers enter the tournament at 31-19 and ranked 10^th in the South Central Region while West Texas, 42-14, enters play ranked 15^th in the nation and coming off an LSC South Division crown.

            ECU, behind the four-hit pitching of Wanda Malone, rolled to a season-opening 5-0 decision over the Buffs on Feb. 5 in the St. Mary's University Tournament in San Antonio, Texas. That game was highlighted offensively by two hits each from ECU's Stefanie Watson, Desiree' Nordie and Nicole Sanchez. Watson homered in that contest.

            However, WT turned the tables on March 28^th in the LSC Crossover Tournament by blanking the Lady Tigers 10-0 behind the four-hit pitching of Marci Womack. Kristina Myles and Meghan Brown collected three hits each for the Buffs in that game. Emily Kennemer had three of the four hits for ECU.

            Thursday's first-round game pits the reigning Lone Star Conference Hitters of the Week in ECU's Hillary Hughes and West Texas' Kim LeComte.

            Hughes had a 6-for-11 (.545 average) week in the Lady Tigers' four-game split with Cameron. One of Hughes' two doubles, which drove in two runs, proved to be the difference in ECU's 7-1 win in the season finale to vault the Lady Tigers into the postseason.

            LeComte had an amazing 10-for-11 performance (.909) with four homers, four doubles and 12 RBIs as WT clinched the LSC South title with a three-game sweep of Abilene Christian. LeComte is batting .401 for the season with 20 homers and 65 runs batted in. Teammate Kasey Henderson is hitting .451 with 39 RBIs.

            Junior outfielder Nicole Sanchez, ECU's leadoff hitter, tops the team with a .397 batting average to go with four homers and 20 runs batted. Kennemer is next at .354 with six homers and 32 RBIs.

            In the pitching department, the junior Malone has a 13-11 record with a 2.37 earned run average while another junior Randee Crockett is 14-3 with a 3.76 ERA.

            Womack has a 17-7 record with a 2.86 earned run average for the Buffs while Sarah Blair is 11-5 with a 4.24 ERA.

            Win or lose, the Lady Tigers will face either Texas Woman's University or the University of Central Oklahoma at 2:30 p.m. today in the double-elimination tournament

            ECU split a doubleheader at UCO earlier this season. The two teams were supposed to play again in Ada, but rain forced the cancellation of that doubleheader. ECU and TWU have not met this season.

            The tournament continues on Friday and wraps up on Saturday in Durant.