THIS WEEK IN PEACOCK SOFTBALL… The Peacocks travel to Leesburg, Fla. this week for 10 matches at The Spring Games. They see two games per day from Mar. 5-10, taking a break from competition on Wednesday. They face Walsh University and Ferris State on Sunday,  Kentucky Wesleyan and Lewis University on Monday and Holy Family University and Lynn University on Tuesday. After their break on Wednesday, they resume play with The College of Saint Rose and Grand Valley State University on Thursday. The Peacocks wrap up the weekend with University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and American International College on Friday.

LIVE OPTIONS… Fans can follow the action this week with pay-per-view access with the FloSoftball services through the link attached to this story. Fans can also refer to the UIU Softball twitter account for any live updates throughout each of the games. Refer to UIUPeacocks.com/Live for any potential live stats or for the FloSoftball stream.

REFLECT ON THE FIRST FOUR… Upper Iowa spent their first weekend of play in Rosemont, Ill. for the Lewis Flyer Dome Invitational and came out of competition with a 1-3 record. The Peacocks dropped two games on Thursday, falling to Saginaw Valley State 17-7 (five innings) and Purdue University Northwest 4-2. On Friday, UIU picked up a 5-0 win against Ursuline College, but fell to UW-Parkside 4-3 earlier that day.

PACED BY PELDS… Infielder Laila Pelds leads the Peacocks with a .500 batting average after the first four matchups of the season. She has recorded seven hits out of 14 at bats, including one double. Pelds has tallied eight total bases and has a slugging percentage of .571. The junior leads the team with an on-base percentage of .500. 

IMMEDIATE IMPACT… Freshman Serah Shafer and Junior Rae VanMilligan are new to the Peacock softball program this year and each of them have put up big numbers to start off the season. VanMilligan is batting .417 on the season with five hits and one home run in the mix. She leads the team in both slugging percentage with .667 and runs batted in with five. VanMilligan has reached a total of eight bases so far. Shafer is trailing right behind Pelds with a .455  batting average with five hits on the year. The freshman has an on-base percentage of .500 and a slugging percentage of .455. These fresh faces will look to continue impacting UIU softball in big ways throughout the ten games this week.

FAST FORWARD TO FAIRFIELD… After the Spring Games, the Peacocks travel to St. Joseph, Mo. for the Fairfield Inn and Suites Classic. UIU matches up against Missouri Western State University and University of Nebraska at Kearey on Friday, Northwest Missouri State University and  Minnesota State University on Saturday and UW-Parkside on Sunday.