MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee softball heads west this weekend, traveling to Riverside, Calif. for UC Riverside's Tournament to start their 2023 softball season.
The five-game slate for the Blue Raiders will be the first of four tournaments on the road to start the season, before returning to MTSU on March 9 for the MTSU Invitational for the team's home opener. The C-USA schedule will start the following weekend!
Our own Anthony Fiorella spoke with Head Coach
Jeff Breeden and a plethora of players about the upcoming season, which you can find in the tweet below or by following this link:
Eager Blue Raiders excited to start 2023 campaign.
Friends and supporters were also able to meet the 2023 squad over the weekend at the "Meet the Team" event in the Kennon Sports Hall of Fame. Check out the gallery below!
Gallery: (2-4-2023) @MT_Softball 2023 Meet the Team event
Varjun takes a Top 5 finish in first tournament of the spring for Men's Golf
Markus Varjun started the spring season off strong for Middle Tennessee Men's Golf on Monday, carding a 70 (-2) on the third and final round of Georgia Southern's Thomas Sharkey Individual Collegiate to secure a Top Five finish with an overall score of 213 (-3).
The Estonian recorded six birdies and an eagle on Monday, at one point shooting 5-under in a five-hole stretch from Hole 7 through Hole 11. The Top Five was the redshirt freshman's first ever for the Blue Raiders.
MTSU Men's Golf will be back in action on February 27 at the Lake Las Vegas Invitational.
Women's Basketball back at the Glass House
The Lady Raiders return home for two games this week, including a big rivalry matchup with WKU on Thursday and the annual Play4Kay game against UAB on Saturday.
The Western Kentucky game, always of great importance to MTSU and WKU fans alike, takes on a renewed sense of importance this season, with the two schools sitting No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the C-USA standings this week.
On Saturday, fans wearing pink to the box office can purchase $8 tickets to that evening's game!
Tennis undefeated at the ATC over the weekend, back for more home games this week!
Both men's and women's tennis had big weekends at the Adams Tennis Complex, where four different dual matches were played and four Blue Raider Ws were earned.
In the first match of the weekend on Friday afternoon,
Rutuja Chaphalkar completed a comeback win for women's tennis, winning a tiebreak in the second set and dominating the third set 6-1 to win on Court 6, giving MTSU the fourth point they needed to get the win over Chattanooga. The Blue Raiders won on Courts 1, 3, 4 and 6 in singles to make up for dropping the doubles point.
On the men's side, the Blue Raiders blanked both USF and Alabama A&M, with a strong 5-2 result against Princeton sandwiched between those two dominant wins. An extremely solid week for the team, after reentering the ITA Top 25 at No. 21 following the opening rounds of the ITA Indoor Championships last week.
Both teams will be back in action at the ATC this weekend, with the women taking on Tennessee State on Friday at noon, with the men's match against C-USA foe Rice to follow at 5 p.m.
Track & Field take four more golds at Jaguar Invitational
Competing at the facility where the C-USA Indoor Track and Field Championships are to be held in a couple of weeks, the Middle Tennessee Track and Field Program picked up four event wins in Birmingham, Ala. at South Alabama's Jaguar Invitational.
The women of the program were the stars, as all four MTSU wins came from their team.
Lesego Mpshe won the women's mile race with a time of 5:01.61 in her first time running the event this indoor season, while senior
Purity Sanga won the women's 3000m with a time of 9:43.82.
Esther Isa continued her dominance in the women's long jump with another first-place finish and a mark of 5.91m.
Akera Benton won the women's triple jump with a mark of 11.76m.
NIL Storefront Reopened!
I, and the rest of our staff in the Athletic Communications department, get a lot of questions about our NIL Storefront with Image Apparel Solutions. And for good reason, given the $25,000 in sales the storefront did during the fall season to help support our student-athletes directly.
It's exciting to announce, then, that the store front has reopened for the spring season, featuring our spring sports as well as men's and women's basketball. Follow this link here:
https://www.image-apparel-solutions.com/mtsu23 to check out the store!
Baseball Promotional Schedule Released
