Wichita State baseball opens American play with home series win over Charlotte
Wichita State baseball didn’t just open American Conference play with a series win over the weekend.
The Shockers opened it with the kind of result coach Brian Green believes can change the way his team sees itself.
A day after being thrashed in a 19-6 loss, Wichita State responded Sunday with a 7-2 victory over Charlotte at Eck Stadium to claim a 2-1 series win over one of the top teams in the conference. For Green, the significance for the Shockers (17-9) went beyond simply avoiding a lost weekend at home.
“It’s a big win for our program and it’s big for this club,” Green said. “You gain confidence when you hold serve at home, but I think you gain even more confidence when you hold serve at home against a really good team.”
That was the larger value in WSU’s opening weekend in the American. The team showed it could recover from adversity, win with different styles and beat a Charlotte team that was picked third in the preseason coaches poll and entered as a top-100 RPI opponent.
After Sunday’s game, Green could sense the shift in his clubhouse.
“We’re leaving here today with a lot more confidence,” Green said. “The guys are like, ‘OK, the coaches have been selling it to us hard, but now we’ve done it.’ So I think we’re going into Week 2 with more confidence than we had going into Week 1.”
WSU won the series by winning the first and third game of the series, using a blend of timely hitting, quality bullpen work and a bottom of the lineup that consistently delivered in the two victories.
That last part may have been the most encouraging sign.
After Wichita State’s offense could at times feel too dependent on one way of scoring a year ago, Green has emphasized building a lineup capable of manufacturing runs in different conditions and in different ways. Sunday’s rubber match, with a stiff north wind blowing in from the outfield, provided a perfect example of why that mattered.
Green said the weather made it difficult for either team to generate offense with one swing, forcing hitters to grind for baserunners and create pressure. He came away especially pleased with the way the bottom of the lineup answered that challenge with bunts, walks and well-timed hits.
“That’s one of the things we talked about in recruiting after we were so one-dimensional last year,” Green said. “You’ve got to be able to win when the balls aren’t flying out and the wind is blowing in, and you’ve got to be able to hit home runs when it’s jetting out of there.”
Wichita State did exactly that in the games it won.
In Friday’s 8-3 victory, the Shockers got a major lift from the 6-through-9 spots in the order. Jack Quick, Kaleb Duncan, Owen Rush and Ethan Gonzalez combined to go 5-for-12, reach base seven times, score three runs and drive in five. Their fingerprints were all over the decisive fifth inning, when WSU turned a 2-1 deficit into a 6-2 lead.
After Alex Ulloa tied the game with an RBI single, Duncan and Rush each executed bunts that brought home runs and Gonzalez followed with the biggest swing of the night, a two-run double off the wall in left-center. What looked like a tense, low-scoring opener suddenly broke open because the bottom third of the order kept the line moving and forced Charlotte into mistakes.
That same formula showed up again in Sunday’s 7-2 win.
This time, Jacob Gutierrez, Quick, Rush and Gonzalez combined to go 6-for-12 and reach base nine times, scoring four runs and driving in two more. In a game in which the wind suppressed extra-base power and every baserunner felt important, those at-bats from the lower half of the lineup helped WSU steadily wear Charlotte down.
It started in the fourth inning, when Alex Ulloa walked and Gutierrez doubled to begin the frame. Quick plated one run on a sacrifice groundout, then Rush lined an RBI single to give WSU a 3-1 lead.
The Shockers finally broke the game open in the eighth when Rush walked, Gonzalez was hit by a pitch and Jaden Gustafson was hit by a pitch to load the bases with two outs. Jayson Jones delivered a two-run single, then Owen Washburn followed with a two-run double to stretch the lead to 7-2.
That offensive support was enough because WSU’s pitching bounced back in a major way after Saturday’s unraveling.
The series began Friday with the Shockers surviving an early test on the mound. Matthew Cuccias’ start was abbreviated and reliever Ryan Morrison exited after just 10 pitches with an apparent injury. But the bullpen stabilized the game from there.
Caleb Reed logged 1 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the win, and Brady Pacha covered the final four innings to collect his second save of the season. Between Reed and Pacha, WSU was able to shut down Charlotte long enough for the offense to turn the game around.
Saturday was a different story.
After Brady Hamilton held Charlotte scoreless through four innings and the Shockers built a 4-0 lead with pressure offense and help from a pair of 49ers throwing errors, the game flipped in dramatic fashion. Charlotte scored four runs in the fifth to tie the game, then kept rolling in a 19-6 rout that featured 22 hits. Catcher Cale Stricklin went 4-for-4 with nine RBIs, tying a program record, and he and Dylan Koontz each homered twice as the 49ers poured in 19 runs over the final five innings.
For an inexperienced team still trying to establish itself in conference play, that kind of loss can carry into the next day. Instead, Wichita State answered with one of its most composed performances of the season.
Johnny Nuanez gave the Shockers exactly the kind of start they needed in Sunday’s rubber match, improving to 3-0 by allowing one earned run on three hits over five innings. He did not walk a batter and struck out six, helping WSU set the tone for the decisive game after Charlotte’s offensive barrage less than 24 hours earlier.
“Johnny really set the tone for us,” Green said. “He’s so tough out there. He’s a little bit of a street fighter on the mound and his stuff is really good.”
But Green was just as quick to point out that the game was ultimately secured after Nuanez exited.
With Wichita State holding a 3-1 lead and trying to avoid any late drama, Brady Owens delivered a scoreless sixth inning before Amar Tsengeg followed with two scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth. Pacha then came back for his second appearance of the weekend and closed out the ninth. In all, the Shockers’ staff combined for 11 strikeouts and only one walk in Sunday’s win.
That was an important answer after the bullpen was unable to protect a lead in Game 2. Wichita State needed to show it could flush Saturday quickly and its pitching staff did that with authority.
Wichita State opened league play by protecting its home field against a quality opponent, and in the process, the Shockers may have found something even more valuable than a series win. They found proof that the team Green has been trying to build is starting to take shape.
Now Wichita State heads into Week 2 of conference play with a road trip to Memphis and, just as Green said, with more confidence than it had a week ago.
This story was originally published March 22, 2026 at 4:13 PM.
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