April 19, 2016
Wichita State at Missouri State
Killian Stadium - Springfield, Mo.
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After knocking off the top team in the league twice on the road last weekend, the Missouri State softball team (16-23, 5-8) entertains the preseason MVC favorites, Wichita State (23-18, 9-5), in a doubleheader at Killian Stadium on Wednesday beginning at 3:00 p.m. The Bears took two-of-three from league-leading Drake entering this week's action against Wichita State and Northern Iowa, both tied for second in the Valley.
Junior pitcher Erin Struemph fired a pair of complete game victories to hand Drake its first two losses of the MVC season. Struemph, who held opponents to a .148 batting average and held a 0.39 earned run average over three outings last week, was named the MVC Pitcher of the Week on Monday and earned MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Week accolades on Tuesday. She is the MSU first pitcher to earn both awards in the same week since Melissa Porche did it the week of March 24, 2008. Struemph struck out 12 Bulldogs over the two games in Des Moines and sits at 446 strikeouts in her career, one shy of tying for fifth in school history.
Senior Erin Duewel hit her team-leading eighth home run of the year on Saturday and tops the squad with 29 RBI. She now has 21 career blasts taking sole possession of second in MSU homer history. She has hit 15 of her 21 home runs against MVC teams. Duewel also ranks second in school history with a .497 career slugging percentage.
Missouri State's defense remains among the best in the nation. The Bears top the MVC with a .975 fielding percentage, a figure that ranks MSU eighth in the country entering this week. It is the eighth-consecutive week that the Bears have been in the top-10 nationally.
QUICK HITS
- Junior pitcher Erin Struemph struck out a career-high 13 Ramblers in game one at Loyola on April 3. It was the most strikeouts in a game by an MSU pitcher since 2011 and tied for most in MVC this season.
- Struemph added a pair of honors to her resume after being named MVC Pitcher of the Week on Monday and MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Week on Tuesday. She is the first MSU hurler to earn both awards in the same week since Melissa Porche won both the week of March 24, 2008.
- Struemph has 446 career strikeouts, one shy of tying for fifth in program history.
- Senior Erin Duewel slugged her eighth home run of the season on April 16 at Drake. It was her 21st career long ball, giving her sole possession of second in MSU history.
- Missouri State's defense enters the week ranked eighth in the country with a .975 fielding percentage. It is the eighth-straight week MSU is ranked in the top-10 nationally.
- Sophomore Erika Velasquez Zimmer picked up MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Week honors on April 12 after three-straight multi-hit games against SIU the prior weekend.
- All five of sophomore Kaitlin Beason's home runs have come in the same game in which she has been the pitcher of record.
- Redshirt sophomore Allie Alvstad singled to right against Omaha on March 11, her first hit since returning to the team after beating leukemia.
SCOUTING REPORT
Wichita State Shockers: The Shockers earned a pair of comeback wins in sweeping visiting Bradley on Saturday. The doubleheader sweep snapped a four-game skid for the MVC preseason favorites. Junior Macklin Hitz leads the Shockers offense with a .372 batting average, one of seven WSU players with a .300 or better average. She is one of three Shockers in the top-10 in the Valley in home runs, trailing teammate Cacy Williams, who has hit eight. In the circle, junior Jenni Brooks has a team-low 3.23 earned run average for a staff that holds a 4.75 team ERA. Defensively, the Shockers rank 14th in the nation at 0.49 double plays per game. Wichita State won the final two games of last season's three game series, but trail MSU in the all-time series, 58-47.
700 AND COUNTING
Head coach Holly Hesse is second in all-time wins by an MVC coach with 720. She entered 2016 with the 37th-most wins among active Division I head coaches. With a 4-0 victory over Illinois State on April 18, 2015, Hesse earned milestone win 700. She trails only current Illinois State coach Melinda Fischer (972 wins in MVC).
BEARS SOFTBALL IS ON THE AIR
The Missouri State softball team will see all of its home games live streamed through Bears All-Access on MissouriStateBears.com.
Some MSU home games will air on KBFL (1060 AM) and can be heard online via RadioSpringfield.com.
2016 Remaining Broadcast Schedule
Wednesday, April 20 vs. Wichita St. (DH) [KBFL]
Wednesday, April 27 vs. SIU Edwardsville [KBFL]
DUEWEL LANDS IN RECORD BOOK
Senior Erin Duewel belted her 21st career home run in the fourth inning at Drake on April 16. That total lands the Lee's Summit native in second on the all-time career homers list. Duewel's blast against the Bulldogs was her team-leading eighth long ball of the year and fourth in MVC games. In her career, Duewel has hit 15 of her 21 home runs against MVC teams.
MILESTONE STRIKEOUT
Junior Erin Struemph is already making waves in the MSU annuls. She picked up three strikeouts in the March 29 start at Arkansas. With her strikeout of UA's Lauren Archuleta to end the second inning, Struemph became just the sixth pitcher in MSU history with 400 career strikeouts. She now has 446 career strikeouts, one shy of tying for fifth in school history.
Struemph began conference play with three-consecutive complete-game three hitters. In her fourth start following the start of MVC play, she held Arkansas to four hits in another complete game effort. Last weekend, she fired a three-hit shutout and a five-hitter in complete game wins over Drake en route to MVC Pitcher of the Week honors.
SCHOLARLY HONORS
Junior Erin Struemph earned the second-straight MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Week nod for an MSU softball player when she picked up the award on April 19. The St. Thomas, Mo., native notched the laurel for the first time in her career just a day after being named MVC Pitcher of the Week. She held a measly 0.39 ERA over three outings during the week of April 11-17, including a complete game three-hit shutout to deal Drake its first MVC loss of the season.
Sophomore Erika Velasquez Zimmer was the first Bear this season to be awarded the MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Week honors. The Coppell, Texas, native earned the accolade for the first time in her career on April 12. She led MSU with nine hits during the week of April 4-10, including a scorching .727 batting average over the three games against SIU. She had multiple hits in all three games against the Salukis, tying a career-high with three hits in two of those games.
IT'S A NUMBERS GAME
Everyone knows that softball/baseball is all about numbers. So here's a few about your MSU softball Bears. The Bears are 13-0 when they outhit the opponent this season. MSU is also 13-0 when leading after the fifth and sixth innings. When scoring six or more runs, the Bears are 9-1. Last weekend's wins at Drake were the first victories this season in which the team has scored fewer than three runs.
TRIUMPHANT RETURN
The Bears eagerly anticipated the inspirational return of redshirt sophomore Allie Alvstad. She missed the entire 2014-15 academic year to battle through acute myeloid leukemia. She received a bone marrow transplant in December 2014 and returned to the team in 2015-16.
In her first plate appearance of the season, Alvstad drew a four-pitch walk against Northern Colorado on Feb. 13. On Feb. 19, she drove in her first run of the season with a pinch-hit ground out at Western Kentucky. Alvstad registered her first hit since returning with a single to right field on March 11 versus Omaha in Lawrence, Kan.
TAKE YOUR BASE
This season, the Bears have drawn 87 bases on balls and have been hit by a pitch 20 times. MSU received a free pass to first base by one or both of these means in 35 of the 39 games this season. In the Feb. 13 game versus Northern Colorado, MSU drew 12 walks, one shy of the single-game program record set in 2004.
PRESEASON PICK
Missouri State received more first-place votes than any other Valley squad, but finished second in a top-heavy Missouri Valley Conference preseason coaches poll released by the league office on January 27. The Bears also were well represented on the preseason All-MVC team with senior Erin Duewel, junior Erin Struemph and sophomore Erika Velasquez Zimmer earning nods. All three players were All-MVC first team members in 2015.
