Wichita State shuts out Sycamores to sweep MVC softball series

A sweep of Indiana State pleased Wichita State softball coach Kristi Bredbenner. It didn’t thrill her.

“For us to be on a roll, we need to be firing on all three cylinders,” she said. “Pitching and defense looked great today. Leaving 12 runners on base and, to be honest, hardly barreling up a ball … we’ve got to figure out some ways to manufacture a few more runs.”

The Shockers defeated Indiana State 6-0 at Wilkins Stadium on Saturday to sweep the Missouri Valley Conference series. Four teams started Saturday within two games of first-place Illinois State as the season passes the halfway point.

WSU (26-14, 11-4 MVC) dropped the final games of its previous MVC series after winning the first two. If the Shockers are to repeat as MVC champions and win on their way to the American Athletic Conference, they can’t let too many more of those slip away.

“We’ve talked it about a lot, especially with Coach B,” pitcher Katie Malone said. “We’re not happy about it, either. We’ve really been talking about coming out on fire from the first pitch. It’s an energy thing. If we’re up, we’re up and you can tell. When we’re down, you can kind of tell.”

Indiana State (18-22, 3-12) helped WSU’s offense with bad routes to fly balls and four illegal pitches. Indiana State coach Tori Magner said umpires told her pitcher Kenzie Ihle failed to start with her back foot on the rubber. Reliever Della Gher crow-hopped, leading to her two illegal pitches.

The Shockers stranded four runners, two at third, in the first two innings. Those are the moments that concern Bredbenner. The Shockers won MVC titles in 2014 and 2016 with an offense that rarely let those moments go by unpunished.

“We’re going to have to start doing some different things if we can’t hit the ball to the outfield,” she said. “That might be squeezing, some hitting and running. Our hitting’s always been able to do a great job. Right now, it’s our pitching that is keeping us in games.”

Malone, on her way to a two-hitter, gave the hitters time.

She worked ahead of Sycamores batters and produced a stream of ground-ball outs and a few popups. Third baseman Mackenzie Wright reached into foul ground to make a spectacular grab of a line drive in the fourth. Left fielder McKenzie Adams ran down a line drive in left in the sixth.

Ihle wobbled in the first two innings when she couldn’t keep her pitches low. Adams singled in a two-out run in the third and Paige Luellen followed with a home run to make it 3-0.

“I had two strikes on me, and normally when I have two strikes I just swing at whatever comes at me,” Luellen said. “That was my mindset. I didn’t think it was going to go over. The wind helped me.”

Adams continued her hot hitting in MVC play with two doubles and two RBIs. She raised her conference average to .365 after going 6 for 9 with three doubles and a triple in the series.

“I definitely wasn’t over-thinking it,” she said. “I wasn’t guessing if I was getting inside or outside, I was just lighting up when I saw a pitch coming down the middle. Trusted myself.”

This story was originally published April 15, 2017 at 2:38 PM with the headline "Wichita State shuts out Sycamores to sweep MVC softball series."