Wichita State remains perfect at Eck Stadium

It’s good to be home.

Coming off a losing road trip, Wichita State returned home Tuesday and remained perfect at Eck Stadium this season with an 11-5 win over Northern Colorado.

The teams will wrap up the two-games series at 3 pm.. Wednesday.

Wichita State (9-6) blew the game open early with a 7-run second inning that saw 12 batters and seven hits – five with two outs. Jordan Boyer and Greyson Jenista both tripled in the inning that chased starter Keenan Lum (1-2) from the game. The junior lefty allowed seven runs, all earned, on six hits and a walk in one and two-thirds innings.

The Shockers, who won seven consecutive home games to start the season, hadn’t played at home since an 8-0 win over Omaha on March 1. Wichita State went on the road and was swept by Louisiana Tech and No. 6 Louisiana State in a pair of three-game series. The Shockers did claim a quality win at No. 13 Oklahoma between the two series but still returned to Eck Stadium losers of 6 of their last 7 games.

Coach Todd Butler said the experience at LSU was a good one despite the additions to the loss column.

“That’s something I wanted to do,” he said. “I think we can grow from that weekend even though we didn’t win a game. We saw some really good baseball from LSU.”

Wichita State’s return home included 11 runs on 11 hits. Every Wichita State starter reached base at least once and 8 of 9 recorded at least one hit. Luke Ritter went 3 for 4 with a double and two RBIs, while Boyer, who was moved to third base in the lineup, went 2 for 3 with a sacrifice fly and drove in two runs to increase his season total to a team-leading 13 RBI.

“We put Boyer at third base and put Bohm at first,” Butler said. “We’ll look at that this week, and I think Boyer will be a really good third baseman for us.”

Northern Colorado eventually put starting first baseman Brett Minnick on the mound in the eighth. He hit a batter and walked two to give up an unearned run that capped Wichita State’s second-largest offensive output of the season.

The early lead from the offense helped take away some of the pressure from the bullpen on a day when the Shocker relievers were called on to handle all nine innings. Northern Colorado chipped away at the lead, scoring in the fourth, sixth and eighth innings as eight Shocker pitchers combined to get the win.

Chandler Sanburn (2-0) made his sixth appearance but first start and gave the Shockers three shutout innings without allowing a hit. He struck out a career-high six batters and left after 37 pitches with a 9-0 lead.

“We weren’t going to go very long with Sanburn,” Butler said. “Sanburn had the flu two weeks ago; he missed a week. So he’s just now getting his strength back, and he’s throwing better and better. He did a good job.”

Connor Lungwitz gave up two runs on two hits in two innings of relief. Matt Whalen allowed one run on two hits to the two batters he faced in the sixth, but Tyler Jones cleaned up by retiring 6 of the 7 batters he faced.

Preston Snavely got into trouble in the eighth by giving up two singles and a walk. One run scored, then Reagan Biechler walked in another run before Clayton McGinness stopped the bleeding on a 3-pitch strikeout with the bases loaded and two outs.

Ben Hecht pitched around a throwing error in the ninth and struck out two of the other three batters he faced to seal the win.

This story was originally published March 14, 2017 at 6:44 PM with the headline "Wichita State remains perfect at Eck Stadium."