Shocker SB at Creighton Tournament

[1972Shocker]

More Iowa charity in the bottom of the 5th. A single and 3 walks plate a run for the Shocks. Then Madison reached on an error by the Iowa RF with 2 more runs scoring and with Paige ending up on 3rd and Madison on 2nd. After a pitching change Bailee walked to laod the bases with two outs. A single to right by Asea scored Paige and kept the bases loaded. Bailey K wiht a chance to end the game with her bat grounded into a force out to the SS to end the inning.

After 5 innings its the Shocks 11 - Hawkeyes 5.

[1972Shocker]

More charity from Iowa in the bottom of the 6th leads to another Shocker run a single and and error by the Iowa SS sandwiched around 2 outs put runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs where Paige delivered run number 12 of the day for the Shocks on a single to LF.

Bailey K has a 7-run cushion heading into the 7th at 12-5.

That was more than enough cushion for Bailey K as she pitches a 1-2-3 7th inning to close out the win for the Shocks.

Despite the offense putting up 12 runs my Player of the Game in this was was Bailey Klitzke. She gave up a single and an inherited runner scored on her first batter after coming on in the 3rd for Mckensie Webber. However, thereafter she went 4.2 innings allowing only 2 more singles, no walks and struck out 4. A badly needed lift for the Shockers secondary pitching.

[1972Shocker]

I was wrong about this game being another ERA Wrecker. Only 3 of the 17 runs scored in this game were earned. All 5 of the Iowa runs were unearned and 9 of the 12 Shocker runs were unearned.

[1972Shocker]

Bailey Lange for the Shocks and Logan Black for Creighton will face of in the finale coming up.

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks draw first blood in the top of the 1st but lost a run on the base paths. Mackenzie singled to center and advanced to 2nd on an error by the Creighton SS with Laurie reaching 1st. Mackenzie then was thrown out at 3rd on a steal attempt. Paige grounded out to 2B with Laurie advancing to 2nd. Madison deleivered Laurie with a double to RF. That was followed by 3 consecutive walks to push across a 2nd run with Creighton replacing Logan Balck in the circle with Kiele Miller. Ryleigh Buck grounded out to the pitcher to end the inning.

2 more uneanred runs for the Shocks on the day. Should have been at least one more. Mackenzie is an aggressive player perhaps to the point of being a bit reckless on the base paths.

[1972Shocker]

In the bottom of the 1st a double, hit by pitch and a walk load the bases for Creighton with no outs. That was followed by a run scoring sac fly, walk to reload the bases, 1-2 force play at home, and a 4-6 force play at 2nd on a 3-2 count.

Probalby about as good as Bailey could hope for after loading the bases with no outs.

Shocks 2 - Creighton 1 after 1.

Shocks plate 3 more runs in the top of the 3rd on a lead-off double to Paige, sac bunt by Madison and RBI single by Bailee, a stirke out followed by an RBI double by BaileyL and an RBI double by Ryleigh.

BaileyL has been a doubles machine lately.

BaileyL works a 1-2-3 bottom of the 3rd and the Shocks lead 5-1 after 3 complete.

The Shocks wasted a 1-out triple by Laurie in the 4th when Paige popped out to the pitcher and Madison grounded out to the pitcher.

BaileyL works a scoreless bottom of the 4th.

After a scorelss 5th Ryleigh is hit by a ptich leading off the 6th and error (presumably throwing) by the Creighton pitcher on a Morgan Palmer sac bunt put runners at 2nd and 3rd with no outs and the top of the order up for the Shocks. Mackenzie fouled out to the Creighton 2B but apparently it was good enough to serve as a sac fly with Ryleigh scoring and Morgan moving to 3rd. Laurie fell behind in the count 1-2 but delivered an RBI single to LF to score Morgan.

Shocks up 7-1 with 6 outs to get.

BaileyL works around a leadoff walk in the botton of the 6th.

Mauriana Jamele leads off the 7th with a home run to right field and BaileyL follows with a homer to center.

9-1 Shocks going into the bottom of the 7th.

Bailey gives up a single to the lead off hitter in tehe 7th but that runner is erased in a unassisted double play on a line drive to Ryleigh at 1b and BaileyL then ended the game with a strikeout.

Hopefully, flyingMoose will feel a little better after today's two wins. I know I do.

[flyingMoose]

Well, BaileyK got the job done today as she does occasionally, but past BaileyL, this is still not a staff to ever feel comfortable with. Two good wins today though. It will be interesting to see the polls on Tuesday.

[1972Shocker]

No doubt. We would be in deep trouble if BaileyL and not transferred. Hopefully, BaileyK can figure out how to be more consistent and dependable and maybe one of the freshman, perhaps Caitlyn can develop enough to eat a few innings here and there.

Actually, I'm a but surprised with what BaileyL has given us in the circle this year. She has been better than I was expecting.

[1972Shocker]

After a very shaky start to the 1st inning giving up a double, a hit batter and a walk to start the game BaileyL was very good the rest of the way allowing only 2 walks and the 7th inning single that was erased in the double play the rest of the way.

The Shocker offense received a lot of help today from both Iowa and Creighton but they also did a good job taking advantage of the opportunities handed to them. The Shockers do seem to be getting the sticks cranked up after a slow start to the season.

http://goshockers.com/news/2018/3/18/softball-langes-two-hitter-leads-wsu-past-creighton.aspx

[mjbaker84]

what is the current record after this weekend? Is it in line with what was expected or better/worse?

[1972Shocker]

The Lady Shocks are 16-10 on the season against a reasonably good schedule and they are receiving votes in the USA Today/NFCA Coaches poll as of last Tuesday would rank then at #29 in the country.

I would say at this point they have been better than my expectations. Coming into this season they lost pretty much all of their effective pitching from last year and what they have coming in was pretty much unknown. Bailey Lange, a junior who transferred from UNI, has been very good (better than my expectations) and is clearly our go to pitcher. The rest of the staff includes Bailey Klitzke, a sophomore who pitched a little last year but who was not very effective. BaileyK has been up and down this year so far. The rest of the pitching are freshman including Caitlyn Bingham, Hailey Martinez and McKenzie Webber none of whom are sure fire bets to be effective on a consistent basis at the D-1 level.

Offensively we lost 3 decent hitters from a year ago (Kelli Spring, Macklin HItz and Ashely Johsnon) and we also replaced our hitting coach when Nicole Entz decided to move on to other things with her life. The Shocks got off to a bit of slow start with the bats but seem to be coming around under new hitting coach Elizabeth Economon.

The Shockers were picked to finish 5th of the 8 AAC teams that play softball. Tulsa was picked 1st. The Shocks are capable of competing with Tulsa but where they will end up in the AAC is very hard to say. Tulsa is about the only program I have much familiarity with.

Bottom line is that we had a lot of unanswered questions coming into the year so expectations were a bit difficult to set. So far we have answered a few things well but still have some things that need to be dealt with, especially with the pitching.

That's my take. Would be interesting to hear from flyingMoose who IMHO is our pre-eminent poster when it comes to softball knowledge.

[flyingMoose]

To update a recent Web site post, outside of the Shocker's blowout losses to ranked teams, their other six losses have been by a total of eight runs.

The pitching was a total unknown coming into last fall. Bailey showed she could pitch, but no one else impressed. That is still pretty much the case. I find it amazing that we have the record we do.

It appears that BaileyK can be trusted with four innings or so on her good days, so they let a freshman go as far as she can and then bring BaileyK on. (She has two starts in eleven appearances.) The game against Texas and today's game against Iowa are examples where she did well, and the offense came on to win the game.

For the freshmen, the best innings/appearance is Caitlin at 2.1 innings. Not what you would hope to see, even from a freshman.

As noted, the offense has started to come alive. With Laurie's good weekend, she and Paige both have an OPS of .900+ and Bailey is just short of that. Are some of the concepts of Economon starting to take hold? Is the weather getting warmer? Are we starting to get enough innings played that the "small sample" effect is fading away? In any case, the offense is doing much better than early on.

Where might the Shockers finish? The conference weekends are single games on Fri-Sat-Sun (except Easter weekend when the games are moved up a day), meaning Bailey will start on Friday and Sunday. The day's rest will be helpful, and the Shocks have a good chance to win each time she is in the circle. Can the rest of the staff match the #2 of their opponents? Probably not very often. When the preseason picks were made, Bailey was an unknown to the rest of the league. I think a vote now might have the Shockers a bit higher. The RPI that I expect to be released on Tuesday may give an idea of where they might finish.

In one sense, the conference finish is meaningful only for seeding in the conference tournament at the end of the season. The pitching staff needs to be much improved to get through that tournament. It is very difficult to ride one arm and get (as many as) four wins in four days. Well, difficult for Bailey - she is not a power pitcher that can blow it by people for four consecutive days. I say four days ... . With eight teams, I am not sure what kind of tournament structure will be used. Top two seeds get a double bye, and seeds three and four get a single bye? This is the structure the Valley uses where only eight teams qualify.

I think 1972Shocker has summed it up about right with "Bottom line is ..."

After a game at Omaha on Tuesday, conference begins Friday when Memphis comes to town. The Shocks will begin finding out.