Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Softball Hosts Wichita State In Final Regular Season Series
05/01/2003 | 12:00:00 | Softball
May 1, 2003
Complete Release in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
Carbondale, Ill. - #25 Southern Illinois (34-9, 17-5 MVC) will host Wichita State (37-17, 15-8 MVC) in its final regular season series of the season this weekend at Charlotte West Stadium - Rochman Field. The series begins with a doubleheader on Saturday at 12 p.m. and concludes with a single game at 12 p.m. on Sunday.
SIU, second in the MVC, faces third place Wichita State with its first ever #25 ranking and a chance to overtake first place Illinois State for the Valley Tournament next week. Despite the ranking, the closeness of the MVC race and this being the final weekend of the regular season, head coach Kerri Blaylock is not putting any additional pressure on her team this weekend.
"I'm not going to put more importance on this series than the series we've played the last five weeks when we faced the top teams. We're taking a normal approach this week and won't do anything different. We just have to play with a consistent effort and we can be successful. Wichita State is a good team and we know that so we have to play the way we're capable of playing. We've had a target on our back since we beat Alabama (currently #17) and started the season 7-1. People have known we were for real back then and that's why teams have played us tough."
The Salukis and Shockers entered the week as the top two hitting teams (WSU .275, .SIU 259), home run hitting teams (WSU 41, SIU 40) and fielding teams (WSU .969, SIU .967) in the MVC, so Blaylock hopes that pitching will be the difference in the series. SIU leads the Valley with a 1.02 era and the Shockers are sixth with a 2.42 era.
"I hope that our pitching will stack up better than their pitching. Even though we can hit home runs we like low scoring games and that suits us better than a slugfest. That's how we won the Illinois State series. If we hold them down and score a couple runs, we can win," added Blaylock.
The Salukis leads the all-time series 31-15 with the Shockers. SIU is 5-3 versus Wichita State under coach Blaylock, including a 1-2 mark in 2002. The Salukis won two of three games against Illinois State last weekend to pull within a half game of first place. SIU has won 26 of its last 31 games.
Prior to the Saturday doubleheader, the men's basketball team will sign free postseason posters for fans from 11:00 a.m. to 12 p.m. before the three seniors (Kent Williams, Jermaine Dearman, David Carney) throw out the first pitch of the game. The softball team will also hold a ceremony to honor seniors Kendra Moore, Katie Kloess and Renee Mueller after both games. The ceremony is open to the public.
