EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Missouri State softball improved to 19-14 (12-3 MVC) on the season with a 7-1 victory at Evansville (20-18, 5-10 MVC) on Saturday afternoon.
 
Madison Hunsaker continued her momentum at the plate from the second game of yesterday's doubleheader, going 3-for-3 with a run scored. Olivia Krehbiel was 1-for-3 on the afternoon with four RBI after launching a grand slam in the fifth inning.
 
Steffany Dickerson earned her 14^th victory of the season after pitching 6.0 innings while allowing just one earned run and striking out five Purple Aces. Jacie Taber came on to pitch the final inning and forced Evansville to go three-up, three-down as MSU secured the win.
 
Evansville struck first in Saturday's series finale, with a single and double in back-to-back at-bats to lead off the bottom of the second inning and take an early 1-0 lead.
 
The Bears answered immediately in the top of the third as Daphne Plummer and Hunsaker both singled with one out to put runners on the corner. Then, Dickerson laid down a squeeze bunt to score MSU's first run of the game and tie it up.
 
Missouri State put together tremendous two-out hitting in the fifth inning with Hunsaker getting the rally started with a single up the middle. Dickerson and Alex Boze then drew walks to set up Krehbiel, who delivered in a major way. With two outs and a 2-2 count, Krehbiel smacked a grand slam to put the Bears up 5-1.
 
The Bears kept Evansville off the board through the remainder of the game, while also tacking on a couple of insurance runs in the seventh inning.
 
Hunsaker logged her third hit of the day with a single to lead off the seventh, followed by McKayla Carney and Annie Mueller doubles to extend the lead to the final score of 7-1.
 
The Bears defense made numerous great plays across the weekend, while also playing clean as they did not commit an error the entire series.
 
Missouri State will hit the road again next weekend for a conference series at Loyola. The Bears will begin the series on Saturday, April 23 with first pitch set for 12 p.m.