Due to the snowy weather throughout the Midwest, the Eastern women’s softball tournament it was supposed to play at Western Kentucky was cancelled.

Softball is set to compete this weekend against Butler and Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis Saturday in Crown Point, Ind. at the Crown Point Sparta Dome.

Coach Angie Nicholson is not sure whom she will be starting at the mound against either team yet, but freshmen Jessica Wireman and Michelle Rogers are the set pitchers.

Rogers is leading the team with a 4.2 earned run average. She is also 2-2 on the season and has pitched 28 1/3 innings so far.

Wireman, on the other hand, has a 4.75 ERA in 28 innings pitched. She has also pitched three complete games so far this season.

Coach Nicholson’s game plans for this weekend are undecided, but she said her main focus is to see who is being consistent at the plate to help determine things defensively for the Panthers.

Nicholson said both Butler and IUPUI have power in their bats, but each team’s weakness is their inconsistency on the field. IUPUI is known to be scrappy, Nicholson said, and keeps coming at you every inning.

The biggest improvement Nicholson would like to see from last weekend’s games at the Auburn Tiger Invitational are for the Panthers to clean up defensively.

As far as the pitching goes, she would like to see her Panthers do a better job of keeping the ball in the park.

Senior catcher Hannah Cole is currently leading the Panthers with a .370 batting average through 10 games. She also has three home runs and seven runs batted in.

Coach Nicholson loves competing this time of year against teams they would normally not play.

‘’This is the time when we get to play teams we normally would not, such as LSU, and work on sharpening our game for the OVCs,” she said.

IUPUYI comes into the game 4-3 after going 2-1 last weekend after a tournament at Kennesaw State in Georgia.

Sophomore fielder Roni Patterson leads the team with a 389 average through seven games and she has a .833 slugging percentage, with two home runs this season.

Junior pitcher Brooke Boetjer is 4-3 this season, with a 2.33 ERA through seven games. She also has held her opponents to a .197 batting average.

Butler comes into the game 4-5 on the season after losing 3-of-4 games at the South Alabama Invitational last weekend.

As a team, the Bulldogs are batting .317 and have an on base percentage of .397.

Junior Alex Kotter leads the team with a .667 average in nine games. She also has 11 RBIs and three home runs.

The Panthers and IUPUI will get underway at 4 p.m. on Saturday and 6 p.m. against Butler.

Maria Baldwin can be reached at 581-2812 or mjbaldwin@eiu.edu.