KALAMAZOO, Mich.– The Western Michigan softball team faces the Miami RedHawks in the opening weekend of Mid-American Conference play, March 24 & 25. The three-game series will begin with a doubleheader on Friday, scheduled to start at 1 p.m., followed by the series finale at noon on Saturday.

All three of this weekend's games will be available for audio streaming with a paid subscription on MiamiRedHawks.com. Live stats will be available on GameTracker and updates will be posted on the Bronco softball Twitter account: @WMUSoftball.

Western Michigan is off to a 12-11 overall record while the RedHawks have won their last eight in a row and boast a 14-11 record. The Broncos have yet to play a home game this season while Miami is 5-0 at home.

The Broncos have traveled to Arizona, Tennessee and Florida for their first 23 games. Following the Miami series, WMU will play its first game in Michigan on March 29, when the Broncos face Michigan State in East Lansing. Western Michigan's first home games in Kalamazoo will be a three-game MAC series against Ohio, March 31 & April 1.

Western Michigan has not taken the field since March 12, when the team took a 5-2 victory over Providence during its final game in Florida. The Broncos won seven of their last nine games on the annual spring trip.

WMU is batting .294 as a team and has the best ERA in the MAC at 2.10. Senior third baseman Kelsea Cichocki leads the conference in batting average (.500) and RBIs (27). She ranks second in hits (37) and doubles (10) and has four home runs. Four other Broncos are batting over .300, including freshman outfielder Mackenzie Swinehart who maintains a .403 average.

Five pitchers have toed the rubber for the Broncos with sophomore Jordan Kurth and junior Anissa Sanchez getting a majority of the starts. Sanchez has a 4-2 record and the second-best ERA in the MAC at 1.66 over 50.2 innings pitched. Kurth is fifth in the conference with a 1.95 ERA and has a record of 6-7. Kurth has struck out 48 batters over 71.2 innings pitched.

Miami is batting .284 as a team and has a 4.43 ERA. Sophomore shortstop Michaela Schlattman leads the RedHawks in batting average (.418), runs (26), hits (33), doubles (10), home runs (6) and RBIs (19). Four players share the pitching duties for the RedHawks, with no one pitcher having logged more than 52 innings.

Last year Western Michigan and Miami only got one game in of the three-game series in Kalamazoo, due to poor weather. The Broncos pulled off a 3-1 victory. In the bottom of the second inning Erin Binkowski hit a solo home run over the right field wall to put the Broncos up 2-0. It was her 11th home run of the season which set a new WMU record for most home runs in a single season.