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Senior Sierra Davenport set the MAC career stolen base and MU career hit records last weekend in Buffalo. (Photo by Matt Riley)

HUNTINGTON, W.Va.—It is do or die weekend for the Marshall University softball team as it heads into the final series of the Mid-American Conference regular season searching for its second consecutive post season berth.

Marshall (29-26, 10-11) will need to get past a three-game venture against Kent State this weekend but could also benefit from some help throughout the conference.

If Bowling Green (12-9 MAC), who takes on West Division champ Central Michigan in Mount Pleasant, drops two against the Chippewas and the Herd sweeps the Golden Flashes, Marshall would earn the tie-breaker with BGSU and claim the final playoff spot based on a pair of wins against the Falcons earlier this season. Also creeping up from behind is Buffalo, a squad that took two of three against the Herd last weekend, who sits at 9-10 in the conference with a doubleheader at Toledo remaining.

Still making her case for MAC Player of the Year is senior Sierra Davenport (Tucson, Ariz.), who continues to pile up the numbers this season. In Buffalo last weekend, Davenport picked up the MU single-season stolen base record (42) which she previously owned, and also grabbed the school's all-time career hit tally (234). Davenport’s .387 batting average, 67 hits and 43 runs reign supreme in the league in 2004, while her stolen base total ranks her first in the MAC and seventh in the nation. The senior is also the conference career record holder with 131 swiped bags in her four-year stint.

On a late-season tear is sophomore shortstop Jessica Williams (Powder Springs, Ga.). J. Williams will ride an eight-game hitting streak into this weekend’s final action at Dot Hicks Field, including an impressive three-hit (two doubles) performance in the Herd’s 5-3 win over UB to keep MU’s playoff hopes afloat.

Kent State (25-16, 14-4) clinched the East Division title last weekend after going 2-1 against Miami (Ohio). The Golden Flashes are led by senior pitcher/designated player Tracie Logar. Logar swept the MAC East Division Player and Pitcher of the Week honors Monday (May 3), becoming the first player to take both awards in the same week since softball split to divisional play in 1998. She is 7-3 with a 1.41 ERA on the mound and is batting .275 in 2004.

MU leads the all-time series with the Golden Flashes, 12-8, but lost the last contest, 2-0, in Kent in 2003.

The doubleheader on Saturday afternoon kicks off at 1 p.m. with the series finale slated for 1 p.m. on Sunday. Sunday will be Senior Day for the Herd's three seniors, Davenport, Sarah Chamberlain (Moses Lake, Wash.) and Sarah Wilson (Washington, W.Va.).

The three-game series will also be broadcast via the internet by WMUL at the above link. All games at Dot Hicks Field are free to the public.