MIAMI (April 13, 2017) -- Conference USA's top-two winning softball programs face off this weekend when Marshall visits FIU in Miami. The three-game, Easter-weekend series begins with a Friday doubleheader at 4 p.m. and a Saturday finale at noon. Both teams come in with 32 wins, tied for the league lead, and the programs are first and second in the East Division of C-USA in the league standings.
 
FIU returns home after a nine-game conference road swing, sitting with a 32-10 record, and an 8-4 C-USA mark. No team has more home wins in C-USA than the 14-1 mark set by the Panthers so far. FIU has won 13 home contests in a row heading into this matchup.
 
This series presents the league's top pitching staff (FIU) versus the conference's best-hitting squad (MU), but when the teams change sides for the bottom of the inning, both are still near the top of the league leaders.
 
The Panthers have the league's top pitching and defensive stats. FIU has a team ERA of 1.85 and a fielding percentage of .978 through 42 games, while leading C-USA with 257 strikeouts. The Panthers are fifth in the league in batting average at .296, tied with Marshall with a league-leading 30 home runs, and tied with Louisiana Tech with a .386 on-base percentage, while sitting second in C-USA with 220 runs.
 
The Thundering Herd are 32-5 overall, tops in conference with a 14-1 mark. Marshall is the league's top hitting team with a .325 batting average, and leads C-USA with 123 stolen bases, more than 50 percent than the next closest team. Marshall is second in the league with 51 doubles, 10 triples and 185 RBI. From a pitching perspective, The Thundering Herd are third with a 2.24 ERA and sit one strikeout behind FIU with 256.
 
The Panthers and Herd each feature a top pitcher and hitter in the league. Marshall's Jordan Dixon has won the last two C-USA Pitcher of the Week honors, while FIU freshman Shannon Saile (Land O'Lakes, Florida / Land O'Lakes HS) won two of the three league honors the three weeks prior to that.
 
Marshall's Morgan Zerkle is the league's top hitter, with a .459 batting average, while FIU's Jackie Schoff (Bradenton, Florida / Lakewood Ranch HS) is second, with a .437 average. Zerkle is fourth in slugging (.757), with Schoff ahead in on-base percentage (.517, third).
 
The two programs have met 10 previous times in softball, with Marshall winning eight times, seven of those as conference foes. The Panthers won the middle of the three-game series in Huntington, West Virginia, at the end of April last year. A rain storm suspended the second game of the scheduled doubleheader on Saturday, with the Panthers winning 6-4 when the game was finished on Sunday morning. The Herd took the final game of the weekend, 3-2, to win the series. FIU won the last meeting between the teams in Miami, 9-1, in five innings, on March 8, 2015.

There will be live video for Friday's doubleheader and live stats for the entire series. Liks are posted on the front page of FIUSports.com.
 
FIU will continue the home stand with its final mid-week action in a Wednesday doubleheader against FGCU. The twinbill has a scheduled first-pitch time of 5 p.m.
 
#######
 
About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including Lime Court at FIU Arena and at Riccardo Silva Stadium.
 
About FIU: Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a "R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity" and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy and is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine's "America's Best Employers" list. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU's Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute.  FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.