Shocker SB at Drake

[flyingMoose]

The Shockers continue their conference play against Drake this weekend. The games today start at 3pm with a noon game tomorrow. The Bulldogs are currently in second place in the conference with an 11-5 mark, a half-game ahead of Illinois State and Northern Iowa.

Drake have five players with an OPS above .800 led by Amy Pierce and Hayley Nybo, each with nine home runs. Their innings are almost evenly split between Rebekah Schmidt (ERA of 2.53 and WHIP of 1.22) and Jordan Gronewald (3.24 and 1.55).

These games are crucial to the Shocker's chances of making the Valley tournament, and it certainly seems that our performance in the circle is the key to any success.

[1972Shocker]

Game 1: Drake 3 - Shocks 1

Shocks out hit Drake 6 to 5 but could only put up a run on Melanie Jaegers solo homer in the 1st. Shocks had a great opportunity in the 5th getting runners to 2nd and 3rd with one and getting Melanie to the plate. Melanie was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Unfortunatley, Ali Vandever and Erin Carney followed with strike outs to end the threat. Melanie came up again in the 7th as the tying room with Danika Miller on base but grounded out to 3B for the final out of the game.

Katie with a pretty solid outing but this has just no been her year. However, had she pitched this way against MSU we would have won that game.

Ifs and buts.

[1972Shocker]

Shocks did not homer in Game 2 but the finally came through with clutch hits with RISP and knock off Drake 6-1 in Game 2.

Sloan went the first 4 innings and Katie finished off the final 3 innings. Nice job in recovering from some recent bad outings.

Had the Shocks pitched this way against MSU they would have swept that DH. Didn't happen but if they can take tomorrow's game from Drake that will certainly help the Shock's cause.

[1972Shocker]

Game 3

Katie gives up a 3-run homer to Drake in the top of the 1st. Shocks responded with their own 3-run dinger in the bottom of the inning courtesy of Hayley Temple off of Jordan Gronewald. After Gronewald walked the next 2 batters she was relieved by Drake's #1 pitcher Rebekah Schmidt who got the final out of the inning.

Both ptichers settled down putting up goose eggs in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th innings.

Drake broke through in the 5th for a run on a walk, infield single and a single to RF to take a 4-3 lead.

In the bottom of the 5th Melanie Jaegers promptly tied the game leading off with solo homer. After a ground out and a infield pop up recorded 2 outs Hayley Temple walked, Abby Furstenbert reached on an E-4 and Ali Vandever walked to load the bases. Brianne Bond re-entered as a DP for Megan McCracken. On a 3-2 pitch Brianne drove a pitch over the left field wall for a grand slam to put the Shocks up 8-4.

Now can Katie manage to hold on to that lead for 6 more outs.

[1972Shocker]

MSU and CU were rained out on Friday and Saturday and are playing a DH today.

In Game 1 MSU scored an unearned run in the 1st and made that stand up through 5 innings, but CU sccored 1 in the 6th and 2 in the 7th to take a 3-1 win over the Lady Bears.

[1972Shocker]

Katie does indeed finish strong pitching a scoreless 6th and 7th to secure the 8-4 win over Drake and the Shocks take the series against the 3rd place Bulldogs 2-1.

Very nice job by the Shocks bouncing back from 4 not so great games against MSU and OSU.

Both Pitching Samantha and Hitting Samantha deserve some credit this weekend.

:encouragement:

[flyingMoose]

Both Pitching Samantha ... deserve some credit this weekend.

Since I suggested out loud that this might be part of the problem, I have to suggest that she was part of the solution also. We got decent work in the circle this weekend.

[1972Shocker]

SIU helped the Shocker cause today sweeping Bradley in a DH. They fought off a late Bradley rally to win Game 1 6-5 and the scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 7th to win 3-2 in Game 2.

I don't know what happend in Game 2 of the MSU - CU doubleheader. Last I knew MSU was up 7-5 in the 5th.

Update: MSU won the 2nd game of their DH with Creighton 10-5.