Texas Tech softball will return home for a five game home weekend as part of the 2016 Jeannine McHaney Memorial Classic. The Red Raiders will begin play on Thursday evening with a 6 p.m. game against Georgia Southern before a Friday matchup featuring Boise State. The Red Raiders will face both teams again on Saturday in a double header beginning at 6:30 p.m. before closing the weekend out with a 10 a.m. game against Boise State Sunday.
 
Jeannine McHaney, long considered the driving force behind women’s athletics at Texas Tech, is the namesake of this weekend’s tournament which has become an annual tradition at Rocky Johnson Field. McHaney joined the Texas Tech faculty in 1966 in a number of roles as she was a professor in the physical education department in addition to serving as the university’s director of women’s intramural sports and the school’s first volleyball coach, a position she held for nine seasons.
 
Following the establishment of the Women’s Athletic Department in 1975, McHaney was selected as the program’s first athletics director until the men’s and women’s departments eventually combined. She remained a top athletics administrator throughout the next two decades until her passing in 1994. Each year, a student-athlete from each women’s program is selected as a Jeannine McHaney Scholar with one of those eventually being crowned the McHaney Scholar Student-Athlete of the Year. The award winner exemplifies the standards established by McHaney in the areas of academic achievement and athletic excellence as well as service to the community and the university.
 
The Red Raiders will return to Lubbock for a five game stand this weekend. Texas Tech, who has only made one home stand prior to this weekend’s tournament, have recorded a 4-2 record when playing at Rocky Johnson field.
 
Kierra Miles continues to be one of the Big 12’s most impressive offensive players through five weeks of play. Miles ranks among the best in the conference in home runs (7), total bases (55), and batting average (.355). So far, Miles has connected on 14 extra base hits to lead the Red Raiders in that category.
 
Texas Tech has been one of the best defensive teams in the Big 12 through the first month of play. The Red Raiders have recorded an impressive .947 fielding percentage while turning a league leading eight double plays. The Red Raiders have also halted runners on the base path allowing only 12 stolen bases, the fourth lowest in the Big 12.
 
Texas Tech has continued to play a tenacious style of play under second year head coach Adrian Gregory. The Red Raiders, for the fourth consecutive week, lead the big 12 in stolen bases with 30. Texas Tech outpaces Oklahoma (29) and Baylor (25) who round out the top-3 in that category.   
 
Following the Texas A&M series, the Red Raiders have played a league leading 11 games against teams ranked in the top-25 including seven games against teams ranked in the top-10.   
 
INSIDE THE SERIES
 
Georgia Southern
The Red Raiders and Eagles will be meeting for just the second time in program history. The Eagles and Red Raiders last met on March 10, 2001where Tech claimed a 2-1 victory.  The Eagles are led into this weekend’s game by Lydia Witkowski who was named the Sun Belt Conference Community Coffee Student-Athlete of the Week. Witkowski led Georgia Southern on offense in the Eagles’ Sun Belt Conference opening series at Texas State as the Eagles went 2-1 in San Marcos. The Eagles’ starting left fielder went 6-for-11 (.545) at the plate with a triple and an RBI and scored a pair of runs herself. She slugged .727 with eight total bases and finished the three games with a .545 on-base percentage. In the field, she recorded four putouts and had an assist in the first game when she gunned down a runner tagging up at third, trying to make it home. The throw out at home from left field completed one of the Eagles’ two double plays on the weekend.
 
Boise State
The Red Raiders and Broncos will meet for the fifth time in softball program history in Saturday’s contest. The Red Raiders have never lost to the Broncos at Rocky Johnson Field. The last meeting between the two teams came on March 23, 2013 as the teams played a double header at the Rebel Classic in Las Vegas. Texas Tech won the first of the two games before falling to the Broncos 2-4 in the second game.