Wichita State softball ready for No. 1 OU with Top 25 ranking, record-setting offense
Wichita State fans looking for a new obsession following the NCAA Tournament run by the men’s basketball team have no shortage of options this spring.
The baseball team is already looking promising under coach Eric Wedge, as the Shockers took three of four on the road from conference foe Houston, and the men’s tennis team looks poised for an NCAA Tournament berth after winning eight of its last nine matches, including four over ranked opponents.
But perhaps the most entertaining team of them all is the WSU softball team, which is off to a school-best 24-5 start, just entered the national rankings, and features an offense that is on pace to shatter almost every record in the program and the conference.
Looking for excitement? WSU has already mashed 56 home runs, just three shy of the school record with 23 regular-season games still on the schedule. Looking for defense? The Shockers have that, too. And pitching? WSU ace Bailey Lange is 12-2 this season with three saves and a tidy 1.49 earned-run average.
Better yet, WSU has its biggest game of the season to date coming up at 6 p.m. Wednesday when the Shockers take on the undefeated and unanimous No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners at Wilkins Stadium. Tickets sold out so quickly that the WSU ticket office had to add more this week, while the game will also be streamed on ESPN+.
“There’s a lot to like about this team,” WSU coach Kristi Bredbenner said. “There’s a lot of excitement when you watch us play. Right now our girls are going out there and competing at the hgihest level and enjoying every second of it. This has easily been one of my most enjoyable seasons of coaching.”
It was difficult to predict WSU would be in the midst of arguably its best regular season in program history, highlighted by its highest-ranked win ever over No. 6 Oklahoma State, following what could only be described as a lackluster 11-16 start to its 2020 season before the coronavirus pandemic ended it.
Bredbenner believes the Shockers benefited from the reset, as they returned all of their core pieces from last season and added impact freshman Addison Barnard, who has immediately become one of the best hitters in the AAC. The freshman from Beatrice, Neb. ranks sixth nationally in home runs (14) and fifth nationally in runs batted in per game (39).
Barnard has taken an already above-average power hitting team to one of the best in the nation. While Barnard’s 14 homers lead the conference, Maddison Perrigan (10), Neleigh Herring (7), Ryleigh Buck (6) and Lauren Mills (6) all rank in the top-10. WSU is hitting 1.93 home runs per game, which is the fourth-highest rate in the country.
“This is definitely one of the best hitting lineups I’ve ever had here,” Bredbenner said. “Honestly, we just work on barreling the ball up. We don’t talk about launch angle. We don’t talk about hitting home runs. We just want to get the barrel on the ball and drive it. Our strength coach (Hannah Wilkinson) does a phenomenal job with them and I think we just have a lot of strong and powerful women who have great mechanics and a great plan at the plate.”
Perrigan, who is WSU’s all-time leading home run hitter, believes this is the most loaded line-up WSU has ever had top to bottom. On top of all of the power hitters, sophomore Sydney McKinney (.447 batting average) leads the conference in hitting and Bailee Nickerson and Kaylee Huecker are veteran presences in the line-up who know how to get on base.
“It’s just a lot of fun to be in a line-up as good as this one,” Perrigan said. “It’s kind of a relief too knowing that you don’t have to get a hit or score the run every single time because you know the girl right behind you can come up and jack a home run or get a good hard hit up the middle.”
Barnard has been a power hitter her whole career, but even she has been surprised by how much success she’s had in her first season at the Division I level.
“I never really expected to hit this many home runs,” Barnard said. “I don’t ever think about launch angle or any of that stuff. We just go for hard line drives every time up and when it goes over the fence, then that’s just a plus for us.”
WSU’s 2021 offense will practically re-write the program’s entire records book. The Shockers are on pace to shatter the school records for runs scored, home runs, runs batted in, total bases and walks in a season, as well as top the marks in batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage for a full season. WSU would also likely set multiple AAC offensive records, most of which are held by the 2016 South Florida offense.
Not that any of this was ever a goal for the Shockers entering the season. They view it as a happy byproduct of their success on the field.
“We’ve always been focused on taking things just one game at a time,” Bredbenner said. “We know we have the potential to be a very good team, but maintaining that high level for the whole year is the challenge. We’re in a tough conference and the offense, pitching and defense has to be there for us every game. We just have to keep taking things one game at a time.”
WSU has never finished better than fourth place in the American since joining in 2018, but the Shockers are off to a 7-1 start in conference play this season and tied for first place with South Florida. After the No. 1 showdown against OU on Wednesday, WSU hosts Houston in a four-game conference series beginning Friday at Wilkins Stadium.
The natural comparison for this group is WSU’s 2018 team that finished 32-23 and reached a NCAA Regional championship game for the first time in program history.
With a record-setting offense, multiple players capable of going deep on any pitch, an ace in the circle and a reliable defense, the Shockers believe they have a chance to surpass what their 2018 predecessors accomplished.
“I see a lot of similarities on this team compared to our team in 2018,” said Perrigan, who is now a senior. “But the biggest difference now is that our offense is 10 times better than in 2018. And Bailey is even better than she was in 2018. We’re just overall better and I’m really excited to see what we can do this season.”
This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 6:05 AM.
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