Two swings helped the Butler softball team sweep St. Bonaventure last weekend to start its conference season.

Butler (10-12, 2-0) trailed in the first game before coming back to defeat the Bonnies 2-1 on senior first baseman Devin Dearing’s first home run of the season.

Senior pitcher Jenny Esparza got the win on the mound, allowing three hits and zero walks.

In the second game of the doubleheader, Butler fell behind again early before sophomore infielder Kristen Boros hit a grand slam to give the Bulldogs the lead and eventual 6-3 win.

It was Butler’s eighth win in its last nine games.

Today’s game against Eastern Illinois was canceled. The Bulldogs will be back in action at Dayton tomorrow at 3 p.m.

The Butler women’s basketball team will be on the road for the third time in four games when it travels to take on Saint Louis Wednesday.

The Bulldogs (15-10, 6-4) are sixth in the Atlantic 10 Conference standings.

All but one of Butler’s conference losses has come on the road.

The Billikens will be competing against the Bulldogs during their annual Education Day game at Chaifetz Arena.

Junior forward Lorreal Jones is the only Saint Louis player that averages double digits in scoring, with 11.3 points per game.

The Bulldogs have three starters who all average more points than Jones.

Junior forward Daress McClung leads Butler in scoring, averaging 16.6 points per game.

Sophomore guard Taylor Schippers averages 13.3 points per game, and sophomore center Liz Stratman posts a 11.5-points-per- game average.

The Billikens are 15th out of 16 teams in the A-10 in scoring, averaging less than 54 points per contest.

The Bulldogs rank sixth in the conference in scoring, averaging a little more than 61 points a game.

Butler is coming off a 64-46 victory over St. Bonaventure at Hinkle Fieldhouse during its Bulldogs Fight Breast Cancer game Sunday.

The ladies wore pink from head to toe, with pink uniforms and new pink Nike shoes to support the fight against breast cancer.

Butler coach Beth Couture is a breast cancer survivor herself.

The festivities were held to support St. Vincent’s Women of Hope.

Couture and her team have previously volunteered for the organization.

McClung led the Bulldogs with  17 points and nine rebounds.

Junior guard Mandy McDivitt and McClung tied for the team lead in assists with five each.

McDivitt and Stratman also added 12 points apiece.

The game also marked the return of the team’s only senior, forward Becca Bornhorst, who had not played since the Bulldogs’ final game of the 2011-12 season against the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Bornhorst recorded six minutes and one offensive rebound in her season debut.

Butler out-rebounded the Bonnies 36-29.

The Bulldogs also shot 50 percent from behind the 3-point line, going 10-for-20.

McDivitt shot 4-for-7 from three-point range.

The Butler men’s basketball team hosts St. Bonaventure tonight at Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.

The Bonnies have an overall record of 10-10 and are 3-4 in Atlantic 10 Conference play.

St. Bonaventure won last year’s A-10 tournament, earning a berth in the NCAA tournament.

The Bonnies lost to Florida State 66-63 in the first round of the national tournament.

On Saturday evening, Butler beat Rhode Island 75-68 in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,000 at Hinkle.

The Bulldogs (18-4, 5-2) were led by senior guard Rotnei Clarke’s game-high 23 points.

The Rams (6-14, 1-6) pulled out to an early lead that held for the majority of the first half.

The Rams’ lead eventually began to evaporate, and a Clarke 3-pointer tied the game at 28 with 5:03 remaining in the first half.

Butler went on an 18-3 run in the first six minutes of the second half to grab a 48-35 advantage, the largest lead of the game for either team.

The Rams began to catch up late, creeping to within four points with 1:45 remaining in the game.

Butler had a 72-68 lead with 27 seconds remaining when Clarke was fouled. He made one of two foul shots to put the game away for the Bulldogs.

Junior forward Erik Fromm did not play and was not in attendance after his father, Len, died of cancer Saturday morning.

A moment of silence was observed before the game in memory of Len Fromm.

“I think what you learn is you don’t spend a lot of time on basketball,” coach Brad Stevens said of playing after learning of Len Fromm’s passing. “This is what happened. What can you do to be a supportive person?

“Let’s try to make each other proud with our effort even though it’s hard to really focus on that task.”

The Butler women’s soccer team is scheduled to play in its first Atlantic 10 Conference tournament tomorrow.

The Bulldogs ended the regular season with an overall record of 11-4-4 and went 5-1-3 in conference play to finish in fourth place.

Butler will be entering the tournament as the No. 4 seed, having won three of its last four matches.

The top eight teams in the A-10 standings qualified for the tournament out of the league’s 16 teams.

No. 5 seed St. Bonaventure is an unfamiliar opponent to the Bulldogs. Tomorrow’s quarterfinal match will be the teams’ first meeting this season. The Bonnies went 8-10-1 overall and 5-4-0 in conference play.

“We haven’t played [the Bonnies], yet it is kind of an advantage because we don’t come in with any preconceived notions,” junior midfielder Mary Allen said. “But it’s kind of a disadvantage too because you don’t know what to expect at all, but I think it’s a good thing we haven’t played them yet.”

If Butler beats St. Bonaventure, the Bulldogs would play the winner of the match between first-seeded La Salle and eighth-seeded Charlotte. The Bulldogs beat Charlotte 1-0 in the regular season finale Sunday. They have not faced La Salle this season.

If Butler does face a familiar opponent later in the tournament, both teams would already know what to prepare for.

“There’s so much to playing a team twice, so even if we play the eight teams we’ve already played, those teams are going to come at us and know how we play (and) go against our weaknesses,” junior midfielder Olivia Colosimo said.

With the potential of playing up to three games in four days, the grind of tournament play can be hard on players.

“Your body doesn’t get a full recovery in between games, but you go into it knowing that,” Colosimo said. “I think you mentally prepare yourself and physically prepare yourself in the days ahead so that you’re ready to play two or three games back to back.”

Players must also prepare themselves for the added pressure of playing in a single-elimination tournament.

“There’s a lot more pressure,” Allen said. “You have to be focused all the time. You can’t let up even for a second because the other team could capitalize on it. One goal could end your season.”

Butler’s quarterfinal match against St. Bonaventure is at 1:30 p.m. in Kingston, R.I. Semifinal matches are on Friday, and the final is on Sunday.

In recent weeks, reports from ESPN and CBS led many to believe that Butler may switch athletic conferences within the next few years.

Butler could make the transition from the Horizon League to the Atlantic 10 conference and replace departing Temple.

The Owls of Temple are currently part of the A-10 in all sports except football.

For football, Temple is an associate member of the Mid-American Conference.

Temple is joining the Big East next season for football and all other sports the following year.

According to reports, Butler may likely be the team to fill the spot left by Temple in the A-10.

Butler would bring all of its athletic teams to the A-10 except for football, which is a member of the Pioneer Football League.

The change would go into effect beginning with the 2013-2014 school year.

Other schools that ESPN and CBS consider to be candidates for filling the A-10 vacancy are Virginia Commonwealth and George Mason.

If the crossover is made, Butler would be the second-smallest university in the league.

Butler would have more students than only St. Bonaventure, which has an enrollment of approximately 2,400.

Butler’s athletic programs would compete against schools with more than 20,000 students, such as Charlotte, George Washington University and the Massachusetts.

However, most of the schools in the A-10 have between 6,000 and 15,000 students.

The Butler athletics department declined to comment on conference affiliation or changes, other than Associate Athletic Director Jim McGrath saying that “we are members of the Horizon League.”

The move would likely benefit Butler’s men’s basketball team, which competed in back-to-back NCAA championship games in 2010 and 2011.

This season, the A-10 placed four teams in the NCAA tournament—Xavier, St. Bonaventure, Temple and Saint Louis. The Horizon League sent only Detroit to the Big Dance.

The Bulldogs would see an increase in competition and would have a traditional conference rival in Xavier.

Senior guard Rotnei Clarke has experience playing in a collegiate athletic conference more prominent than the Horizon League.

Clarke transferred from Arkansas—a member of the Southeastern Conference—last year and sat out this season with a year of eligibility remaining.

“It’s a cool thing being able to play in a power conference,” Clarke said.

The A-10 is not nearly as big as the SEC, but the A-10 tends to draw more attention from major media outlets—specifically ESPN—than the Horizon League.

Clarke said the media exposure he experienced during his time in the SEC was a good experience.

Clarke will graduate from Butler prior to any of Butler’s teams competing in A-10 play, but he said he thinks the men’s basketball team would still measure up in the new conference if they moved.

“I feel like we would compete in the A-10 for sure. No doubt about it,” Clarke said.

Like the men’s basketball team, the other squads would see an increase in competition but not necessarily unfamiliar opponents.

Men’s basketball, women’s soccer, baseball, men’s tennis and women’s tennis all played or will already play at least one A-10 team during this academic school year.

Baseball coach Steve Farley said both Xavier and Dayton, two teams from the A-10 that Butler has faced or will face this season, were in the conference when he took his current job more than 20 years ago.

Farley  also said he would be OK with the new competition, but he is wary of the way the conference is spread out.

“Fifteen-hour bus rides to places like Massachusetts, Rhode Island and upstate New York don’t excite me that much,” Farley said.

Volleyball coach Sharon Clark said she is not familiar with the A-10 but thinks it would be a little tougher from a traveling aspect as well.

As for football, scholarships are available for players in the A-10 but not in the PFL.

Reports indicate that if Butler jumped to the A-10, its football team would remain in the PFL.