SEC series finale in Knoxville

FAYETTEVILLE – The Arkansas Razorbacks softball team heads to Knoxville, Tenn., to face the No. 5/4 Tennessee Lady Volunteers April 29-May 1 for the final Southeastern Conference series of the regular season.

The Razorbacks are fresh off an eighth inning 1-0 win over the ULM Warhawks on Tuesday afternoon in what should have been a doubleheader at Bogle Park. Senior Kim Jones pitched the Razorbacks to the second win in a row on Tuesday afternoon in extra innings. Jones went the eight innings it took for the Arkansas to pull the 1-0 win over ULM. She threw six strikeouts with four hits and just two walks.

The Razorbacks collected eight hits on the day against ULMwith two hit from freshman Chloe Oprzedek came up with the bottom of the eighth to give the Razorbacks a walk off single to left field to drive Jayme Gee around from second to plate the run the Hogs needed to clinch the win.

"Tennessee is a great program," head coach Mike Larabee said. "They have great pitching, they hit and they have speed. We have our work cut out for us, but if we can get the type of performance in the circle like we saw from Kim Jones in the last week, you never know what could happen at the end of the game."

The Lady Vols were on a 13-game winning streak before their most recent loss to Mississippi State last weekend. Tennessee tops the SEC with a 17-5 conference record and 41-7 overall on the season. This is the final home series for the Volunteers, before they head to Gainesville, Fla., to meet the Gators for the SEC series finale next weekend.

Raven Chavanne has been a fixture for Tennessee at the plate this season. She is batting .546 on the season and has started each of the 48 game this season for Tennessee. It’s the pitching staff for Tennessee that will test the Hogs over the weekend. Sisters Ivy and Ellen Renfroe teamed up this season to pitch UT to 37 combined wins this season. Ellen leads the pitching staff with a 1.24 ERA while Ivy goes into the weekend with a 1.94.

Tennessee leads the all-time series over UA 26-11. In 2010, the Lady Vols swept the doubleheader at Bogle Park from the Razorbacks with a 3-1 loss for Arkansas in game one, followed by a 5-3 loss in the series finale.

The first pitch is set for 6 p.m. on Friday evening with noon start times for Saturday and Sunday in Knoxville, Tenn.