A look ahead at what has Wichita State softball already excited about 2023 season
It was a sobering ending to the season for the Wichita State softball team.
The Shockers came to Fayetteville with the belief they could be the Cinderella story of this postseason with an explosive offense headlined by a pair of potential All-American looking to lead the program to its first NCAA Super Regional.
That dream is on hold for another year, as Wichita State saw its season come to an end in the early hours of Sunday in an 8-1 loss to Oregon.
Initially, there was some frustration because WSU never felt like it played anywhere close to its best softball, especially in the season-ending loss when it finished with eight walks, four wild pitches, a passed ball and two fielding errors.
But WSU coach Kristi Bredbenner said it could serve as motivation moving forward for a Shockers squad that could return 103 combined home runs.
“As much as a negative as you think it might be because we lost, I look at it as a positive coming out of this regional with the experience that some of these girls can build on going into next season,” Bredbenner said. “This was the first taste of the postseason for a lot of them. Now they know the level of play. They’ll remember this and remember these are the things that can’t happen. You’ve got to learn firsthand what that’s like. We know we didn’t play our best softball in the regional, but we’ve got a young team and we came away with some really great experience.”
Wichita State believes it has a chance against any team in the country with Sydney McKinney and Addison Barnard, two of the best hitters in the country who could return for their final season together in 2023. McKinney, a shortstop, plans to use her extra year of eligibility, while Barnard is slated to be a junior outfielder.
McKinney, who went 7-for-10 in the regional, finished a historic season that saw her lead the country in batting average (.522) and finish with the 16th-best hitting season of all-time. She was named a top-10 finalist for USA Softball Player of the Year and shattered the program’s single-season records in batting average, hits (97), on-base percentage (.566) and runs (97).
“Hitting over .500 through an entire year, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, that’s pretty phenomenal,” Bredbenner said. “Syd just finds ways to make it happen. She’s not real flashy, she’s just athletic and works her tail off. It doesn’t matter if she mishits a ball or she crushes it, she’s coming with the same speed out of the box. To be honest, it was an unbelievable year for her and someone who, in my opinion, deserved all of the recognition she received and even more.”
Barnard also finished a historic season where she led the country in home runs (33) and finished with the third-most in a season all-time. The American Athletic Conference Player of the Year led the country with her 84 RBI and also was near the top of the leaderboard in total bases (172) and slugging percentage (1.018).
WSU is also set to return talented hitters in sophomore Lauren Lucas (.387, 10 home runs), junior Zoe Jones (.324, 15 home runs), junior Lauren Mills (.303, 16 home runs) and sophomore Jessica Garcia (.326).
Finishing with 34 wins and another trip back to an NCAA regional was quite the accomplishment in Bredbenner’s mind after losing five crucial seniors from the 2021 team and then three potential starters to season-ending injuries early in the 2022 season.
Before Bredbenner arrived, WSU softball had never won in the NCAA postseason. Now the Shockers have won at least one game in an NCAA regional (the Shockers beat Princeton 5-4 on Saturday) in all four postseason appearances under Bredbenner in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2022.
“I don’t want to say we overachieved because it’s our expectation to get here, but we did face and overcome a lot of obstacles this year,” Bredbenner said. “You start looking at some of that stuff and you realize, ‘Wow, these kids achieved maybe more than we should have’ and we got a lot of kids experience that I didn’t picture them having right away. That’s going to be something that really helps them and us and they continue to grow in our program.”
The emergence of Lucas was a prime example of that. After only 13 at-bats in the 2021 season, Lucas finished with a .387 batting average, 12 doubles, 10 home runs, 39 RBI and 41 runs scored to go along with stellar defense in center field.
Bredbenner was also pleased to have so many freshmen be able to gain experience throughout the season with Krystin Nelson, Lainee Brown and Cassie Passwaters at the plate and Alison Cooper, Kenzie Schopfer and Jordyn Pipkin in the circle.
WSU will have production to replace with its five graduating seniors: Neleigh Herring, Caitlin Bingham, Erin McDonald, Wylie Glover and Arielle James, who was injured for almost all of this season. Herring (.333, 15 home runs) leaves a hole in the heart of WSU’s lineup, while Glover was a team leader and Bingham (13-5, 5.34 ERA) and McDonald (10-8, 5.61 ERA) were the team’s top two options on the pitching staff.
With so much hitting talent poised to return to WSU next season, Bredbenner feels like the task this summer is obvious: find experienced pitching help in the transfer portal.
“We’re going to be looking to add some experience in the circle and it wouldn’t hurt to add another bat to our lineup either,” Bredbenner said. “But we’ve got a lot of talent coming back and we have to use this momentum and my hope in recruiting a pitcher is we can attract someone with the simple fact that we have 100-plus home runs coming back and a lot of great batting averages. We’ll use that to our advantage and try to attract someone who maybe wasn’t getting that kind of run support at their old school.”
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