Softball Bears Return to Killian for Loyola Series

Saturday, April 24

Springfield

6:00 p.m.

Missouri State University

Loyola Chicago

Softball Bears Return to Killian for Loyola Series

April 23, 2021 | Softball

By: MSU Athletics Communications

Missouri State Bears (19-14, 10-4 MVC) vs. Loyola (9-22, 5-10 MVC)
Dates	Saturday, April 24 – Sunday, April 25, 2021
Site \| Location	Killian Stadium \| Springfield, Mo.
Game 1	Saturday, 12:00 p.m. \| Live Stats \| Watch (ESPN3) \| MSU Game Notes
Game 2	Saturday, 30 mins. after Game 1 \| Live Stats \| Watch (ESPN3) \| MSU Game Notes
Game 3	Sunday, 11:00 a.m. \| Live Stats \| Watch (ESPN3) \| MSU Game Notes
Missouri State	Softball Home Page \| Season Stats \| Roster \| Twitter \| Facebook
Up Next	April 28 \| vs. Southern Illinois \| Springfield, Mo.

The Prime Nine

Missouri State (19-14, 10-4 MVC) will play its first home games of April this weekend as the Bears host Loyola (9-22, 5-10) for a Missouri Valley Conference three-game set. MSU is coming off a seven-game road trip which was highlighted by a sweep at Valpo on April 17-18. The return to Killian Stadium will be a welcome sight for the Bears who boast a 5-2 record when playing on their home field.
With a 10-4 record in conference play, Missouri State sits in second place in the MVC standings after last weekend's sweep at Valpo secured its fourth Valley series victory of the season. The Bears have swept their league foes in two of those series and will have a chance to make it a third with the Southern Illinois finale on April 28 after MSU took both games of a doubleheader on March 24.
In the weekend sweep of Valpo, the Bears outscored the hosts 24-3 with three consecutive eight-run games and induced the run-rule in two of them. For the season, Missouri State is holding league opponents to an average of 2.64 runs per game with 37 runs scored against them through 14 MVC contests. On the flip side, MSU has hung 71 runs against Valley teams for a +34 run differential that ranks fourth in the conference.
The MSU pitching staff ranks third in the MVC with a team ERA of 2.90. The trio of Steffany Dickerson (Sr., Oklahoma City, Okla.), Madison Hunsaker (Sr., Peculiar, Mo.) and Gracie Johnston (So., Augusta, Kan.) stand among the top-11 Valley pitchers in ERA with Hunsaker (1.81) at fourth, Johnston (2.40) at seventh and Dickerson (3.18) at 11th. As a staff, the Bears have posted seven shutouts on the year, which is the second most in the league, with combined scoreless efforts in four of them while Dickerson has single-handedly blanked opponents twice in games against Western Illinois (Feb. 25) and SIU (March 24).
Hunsaker was selected as the MVC Player of the Week on April 19 after she hit .883 (5-for-6) and slugged 1.500 while collecting four RBI and smacking her third home run of the season at Valpo last weekend. Carrying a pitcher of the week honor from earlier this season (Feb. 22), she became the second Bear in program history to earn recognition in both the player and pitcher categories of the conference's weekly award after Kate Madden accomplished the feat in the 1996 season. The dynamic two-way player leads the team in extra-base hits (10) with six doubles, a triple, and three home runs while also boasting a 7-4 pitching record.
Darian Frost (Sr., Lee's Summit, Mo.) clubbed her second career grand slam in the series finale versus Valpo. She is the sixth MSU player to record multiple grand slams in a career after hitting her first one back on April 18, 2018 against SIU. It was the first Missouri State grand slam since May 9, 2019 when Kelly Metter's blast cleared the bases against Indiana State in the second round of the MVC Tournament.
Leadoff hitter Daphne Plummer (Sr., Lee's Summit, Mo.) paces the MSU lineup with a .358 batting average and 24 runs scored. She hit her third triple of the year to open up the series finale at Valpo on April 18. The three triples in 2021 is tied for second-best among league hitters while her 12 stolen bases is tied for fourth.
Alex Boze (Jr., Swansea, Ill.) recorded her team-leading fifth home run of the season on April 18 at Valpo. She hit a seventh-inning go-ahead blast at Saint Louis (March 16) before going on to add a game-tying home run against UNI on March 21.
Olivia Krehbiel (So., Lee's Summit, Mo.) leads the team with a .436 on-base percentage and is second in batting average (.300) and RBI (16). She tallied her fifth extra-base hit of the season with an RBI double in the fifth inning of the Valpo series opener (April 17).

Head Coach Holly Hesse

Bears head coach Holly Hesse is in her 33rd season leading the Bears' program as the second-winningest coach in Missouri Valley Conference history with a career record of 837-814-2 (.507). She began the year ranked 30th among all active NCAA Division I coaches in career victories.
Coach Hesse is 12-4 all-time against Loyola.
Hesse joined the elite 800-win club on March 24, 2019 with the Bears' 3-2 come-from-behind win over Northern Iowa at Killian Stadium to make her the 30th active Division I coach at the time with 800 wins at the time. Hesse picked up her 750th win on Feb. 9, 2018 with a 4-0 win over Mississippi Valley State at the Bulldog Kickoff Classic in Starkville, Miss., after earning her 700th victory with a 4-0 win at Illinois State on April 18, 2015, completing a doubleheader sweep in Normal, Ill.
She is the winningest coach in Missouri State history, and her tenure includes two regular-season MVC titles, five MVC tournament crowns and five NCAA Tournament appearances.
The most notable program wins under Hesse have come against Michigan (1996), Alabama (2006) and Oklahoma (1995, 1998, 1999, 2008) all of which have gone on to win NCAA DI National Championships. In 2019, Hesse led the Bears to a 4-3 win at No. 16 Auburn.
Hesse has coached 36 different first-team all-conference players which have received 51 first-team all-conference honors. Twenty-three of Hesse's players have gone on to earn NFCA All-Midwest Region honors, including Steffany Dickerson in 2019.
Recent statewide honors for Hesse include induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 and the Missouri State University Staff Excellence in Public Affairs Award, presented to her in 2016 by the MSU Board of Governors for distinctive work and accomplishments in support of Missouri State's public affairs mission.

Series History

Missouri State leads the all-time series against Loyola, 12-4, including a perfect 9-0 mark at Killian Stadium. The Bears carry a four-game winning streak against the Ramblers into this weekend after taking a three-game sweep in Springfield in 2019.
In the 2019 sweep, Daphne Plummer's walk-off single backed a dominant outing from Steffany Dickerson who struck out six and allowed no earned runs in a 2-1 win in the opener. It was another pitching battle in game two as Erin Griesbauer tossed a shutout and Dickerson's sixth-inning squeeze bunt provided the only run of MSU's 1-0 victory. In the finale, the Bears surged ahead on back-to-back two-run innings with Rachel Weber driving in two of the runs while Dickerson held the Ramblers in check for the second consecutive day as she struck out nine in the 5-3 win.

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