Everyone reading this knows that Angela Tincher is coming to town. She's the star pitcher of the Akron Racers, the final home opponent this season. She's also the former star of Virginia Tech, so it will be interesting to see if she can draw some of the large number of Tech alumni in our area.

We faced Akron on the road back in June (you can read the preview of that series here). We won the first 3 games, before being no-hit by Tincher in the finale. (And wasting an excellent 1-hit game from Taryne Mowatt.) Tincher had also started game 2 of that series, giving up 5 runs. She obviously learned from that game, and used that knowledge against us in game 4. Hopefully she's since forgotten whatever it was she learned.

Tincher leads the NPF in wins and strikeouts, despite getting a late start. She's second only to our own Sarah Pauly in ERA. She will be the key to this series for Akron. The big news might be that she had to leave her previous start, Tuesday against Chicago, with a sore right arm. We'll have to wait and see what that means for our series.

Even without Tincher, Akron has several good pitchers. Rookie Angel Shamblin is second on the team in wins, strikeouts, and ERA. We saw Shamblin just once up in Akron, and we did pretty well against her. Jamee Juarez has also been known to give us a hard time, including a 9-inning shutout last year. This past June, however, she did better against us in her shorter outings. Radara McHugh has not seemed to give us much trouble during the last 2 years, so we may not see her at all.

Norelle Dickson and India Chiles were the best hitters in the series in June, but Kristen Butler is the only Racer over .300 (.347). Butler also leads the team in HRs with 10, followed by Kate Robinson with 8 and Veronica Wooton with 6. Dickson leads the team in stolen bases, followed by Kellie Middleton, and Kim Hamilton. They also have a designated thief in Jherica Williams, with 6 steals but only 10 ABs. Akron is last in the NPF in batting average, so small-ball will loom large in this series. (Even with Tincher, Akron is last in the league in ERA, a category still lead by the Glory.)

This series with Akron will go a long way toward determining our playoff fate. There is basically a three-way race for first: Washington, Philly, and Chicago. There is also a 3-way race for the 4th and final playoff spot. Akron was just swept by Chicago, so they are barely holding on to 4th. They need wins as much as we do now, so this should be 4 very hard-fought games. We need to win 3 of these games, so that will be my prediction.