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PENSACOLA, Fla. – The University of West Florida will take a 20-game winning streak to Livingston, Alabama, for a three-game weekend series against West Alabama this weekend. Game times are slated for noon and 2 pm on Saturday and 1 pm on Sunday for the series finale.
 
At 30-8, UWF is the lone team in the Gulf South Conference with single-digit losses at this point in the season. The Argonauts and Mississippi College are tied for third place in the GSC standings at 14-7, and the two teams are just a game behind No. 11 Valdosta State and No. 23 Alabama Huntsville, which each enter the weekend at 15-6.
 
All three games will feature live stats and a live broadcast, and links for those can be found at GoArgos.com.
 
The Streak

• West Florida won its 20th consecutive game with a 6-0 shutout win at Spring Hill on Wednesday. Becca Taylor and Taylor Rolison one-hit the Badgers, and Rachel Wright led the team with four hits and three RBI.
• This is West Florida's longest winning streak since 2005, when the Argonauts set a program record with 27 wins in a row during their 60-win season. UWF's 20 consecutive wins mark the third-longest winning streak in program history.
• The UWF offense has been one of the best in the Gulf South Conference all season, but things have really taken off during the streak. UWF is hitting .338 with a .500 slugging percentage, 55 extra-base hits and 37 stolen bases in the last 20 games. Jacey Castro and Rhiannon Sassman have led the team offensively, hitting .449 and .444, respectively. Castro leads the team with 31 hits and 8 doubles during the streak, and Sassman's 20 RBI, 50 total bases and .794 slugging percentage are team highs. Additionally, Castro has walked nine times and struck out just once.
• The pitching has seen the biggest improvement over the streak, with a 1.12 ERA over 137 innings of work. Becca Taylor has led the pack with a 0.96 ERA and a perfect 12-0 record and three shutouts, Sarah Maloney is 6-0 and has struck out 45 batters in 41.2 innings, and Taylor Rolison is 2-0 with a 1.25 ERA and a .169 opponent batting average.
• UWF owns the third-longest active winning streak in DII, behind Harding (26) and Colorado Mesa (21).

 
About West Alabama

• West Alabama enters the weekend tied for eighth place in the league standings with a 9-12 Gulf South Conference record. The Tigers took two of three from Delta State and Mississippi College early in the season and won one game in a series against Lee last weekend.
• UWA's .295 team batting average ranks 10th in the conference but the Tigers also rank 2nd in walks (122), boosting the team's on-base percentage to .392, good for fifth in the conference.
• First baseman Audrey Diekmann has been one of the top offensive players in the GSC this year, with a .429 batting average, 11 home runs and a stunning .830 slugging percentage. She leads the conference in walks (27) and is second in slugging, on-base percentage (.552) and home runs.

 
What Has Happened Since We Last Lost?

• The sports world has been busy since UWF last lost on March 5. In professional sports, the United States defeated Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic to claim its first championship in the tournament's history, and the NFL voted to move the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas beginning in 2019 or 2020.
• More importantly, several other UWF have seen a great deal of success in the last 34 days.

• The women's basketball team continued its run in the NCAA Tournament, going as far as the Elite Eight and bringing home a South Region Championship for the first time in program history.
• The swimming and diving team competed at the NCAA Championships in Birmingham, Alabama, finishing sixth overall for the second consecutive year. Theresa Michalak won four individual national championships and set three NCAA DII records, and Monica Amaral won both diving titles for the second time, and they were named the NCAA Swimmer of the Year and Diver of the Year, respectively. In all, UWF had 22 All-Americans between the nine student-athletes who qualified for the trip.
• The women's golf team took a 19-shot victory at the Bama Beach Bash in Gulf Shores, Alabama, on March 19, with Paloma Vaccaro taking the individual title and Lauren Lamm finishing just a shot behind her. On the men's side, Chandler Blanchet, who is ranked No. 1 in DII, won the Bobcat Invitational in Eatonton, Georgia, to claim his fourth win of the year. Both teams won their home events earlier this week in Pensacola, as well, with Blanchet taking the men's title and Fabiana Salazar claiming the women's title on a chip-in from a greenside bunker to win in a sudden victory playoff.
• Men's tennis made the leap to No. 1 in the country in the latest ITA National Men's Rankings, and the UWF women's tennis team moved up to No. 6. The men's team has beaten No. 1 Hawaii Pacific, No. 3 Armstrong Atlantic and No. 12 UC San Diego in the last month.
• The baseball team has also gone on a strong run, winning 11 of its last 14 games and jumping to third in the Gulf South Conference standings.

 
The Unhittable Sarah Maloney

• Junior Sarah Maloney leads the GSC in strikeouts per seven innings (7.5), hits allowed per seven innings (5.0) and opposing batting average (.202), and she ranks sixth in ERA (2.04).
• Maloney has put together 1.03 ERA in her last four outings, during which she has gone 3-0. Opponents have hit .188 in her last 20.1 innings and has struck out 20 batters.

 
Welcome to the Show

• Since becoming the first UWF softball student-athlete to serve as an in-studio guest on Argo Sports Weekly on March 29, Sara Spears has recorded a .444 on-base percentage and is a perfect 4-4 in stolen base tries. She also ranks second on the team with four walks in that time and has four runs scored.
• UWF is 5-0 in that time.