Salukis head to Illinois State for first MVC Road Series of the Season

Saturday, March 30

Normal, IL

3 p.m.

Southern Illinois University

Illinois State University

Salukis head to Illinois State for first MVC Road Series of the Season

03/28/2019 | 1:19:00 | Softball

Game Notes (PDF)Watch Game 1 Watch Game 2 Watch Game 3 Live Stats

By: Will Becque, SIUSalukis.com

The Southern Illinois University softball team (18-9, 5-3 MVC) will travel to Bloomington, Ill. to take on the Illinois State Redbirds (11-20, 5-0 MVC) for a three-game series beginning Saturday at 12 p.m. It is SIU's first MVC road series of the season and opens a stretch in which Southern plays 15 of its next 19 games on the road. All three games this weekend can be streamed on ESPN3.

All-time vs. Illinois State

The Salukis and the Redbirds have met 127 times previously, with Illinois State holding a 61-66 edge in the all-time series that dates back to 1976.
Southern is 21-26 all-time at Illinois State.
The Salukis and the Redbirds have split the previous 26 meetings between the two schools at Marian Kneer Stadium, which opened on April 3, 1999.
Southern has won three of its last four at Illinois State and five of its last eight.
SIU last won a series at Illinois State in 2017, as Southern took two out of three from Illinois State behind Brianna Jones, who won both games in the circle with a 4.02 ERA in 15.2 innings. Katelyn Massa was 6-for-11 (.545) with two home runs and seven RBI while Susie Baranski was 6-for-11 (.545) with a home run (one of her two career dingers) and two doubles in the series win.
Southern's last three-game sweep at Illinois State came in 2005.

Active Salukis vs. the Redbirds

Katelyn Massa is a lifetime .476 (10-for-21) hitter in seven career games against the Redbirds. She has three home runs, a .905 slugging percentage, three walks and 11 RBI in those seven games.
Maddy Vermejan is a lifetime .353 (6-for-17) hitter in seven career games against Illinois State with four walks, four hit by pitches and two RBI. Her .560 on-base percentage against the Redbirds is the highest of any active Saluki.
Susie Baranski is a .348 (8-of-23) hitter in seven career games against the Redbirds, which includes three doubles and a home run.
Brianna Jones is 7-0 with a save and a 2.17 ERA in 10 career appearances against the Redbirds.

Nice to see you again

Tara Glasco Archibald, a second-year assistant at Illinois State, played for Coach Blaylock from 2000-03 and helped the Salukis reach the Sweet 16 of the 2003 NCAA Tournament.
Archibald appeared in 65 games during her Saluki career and hit .140 (14-for-100) with 20 walks and was a four-time NFCA Scholar-Athlete honoree.

Scouting the Redbirds

Illinois State comes into the weekend series with an 11-20 record after it played one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country. The Redbirds have since won five-straight to open conference play, including three run-rule wins.
Shannon Felde is hitting .366 with a .450 on-base percentage to lead the Redbirds.
Allison Spence, the reigning MVC Player of the Week, is hitting .318 with three home runs and four doubles.
Morgan Day has made 13 starts in the circle for Illinois State this season and sports a 5-9 record with a 3.29 ERA and 71 strikeouts.

Two Home Runs in a Game

Kyleigh Decker became the 41st Saluki to hit two home runs in a game when she cranked out two in SIU's 11-2 win over UT Martin on March 27.
It marks the second time this season a Saluki has hit two dingers in a game- Ashley Wood also went yard twice in SIU's 10-0 win over St. Louis on March 2.
Southern improved to 41-0 all-time when a player hits two home runs in a single game.
It marks the third-straight season in which SIU has had at least two players go deep twice in a game in the same season.
Katelyn Massa hit two home runs in SIU's 12-7 win at Illinois State on April 1, 2017 to become the first Saluki freshman since 2010 to hit two home runs in the same game.

Grand Salami

Katelyn Massa's walk-off grand slam in SIU's 11-2 win over UT Martin on March 27 was her first career grand slam.
Massa improved to 3-for-4 on the season when the bases are juiced.

Wood's Been Hit!

Ashley Wood was plunked twice in SIU's 11-2 win over UT Martin on March 27.
It marked the first time that a Saluki was been hit twice in a game since Kyleigh Decker got dinged twice at Bradley on April 22, 2018.
Wood has been hit four times in her last four games.

Hits in Pairs

Jenny Jansen has recorded multiple hits in 13 of SIU's 27 games this season, which includes three three-hit games.
Over the last 16 seasons, the most multi-hit games in a season by a Saluki is 19- set by Mallory Duran-Sellers during the 2011 season.

Scoring first

SIU has scored first in 18 of its 27 games this season and sports a 15-3 record when doing so.

Slugging away

SIU has out-hit its opponent in 16 of 27 games this season and holds a 14-2 record when doing so.

RPI

The second NCAA RPI rankings of the 2019 season came out and SIU is one of three MVC teams ranked in the top-55. ISU is in the top-100 at No. 96.
It is SIU's highest RPI ranking since 2010, when Southern finished 52nd and posted 11 wins over Top-100 teams.
Southern cracked the Top-45 in five-straight seasons from 2003-07 and finished as high as 28th in 2005. The Salukis received five-straight at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament during that stretch.
In 2004, Southern ended the season at No. 33 after it went a ridiculous 24-14 against Top-100 foes, which meant 61.2% of its games that season were played against Top-100 opponents.

RBI Leader

Ashley Wood's RBI in SIU's 11-2 win over UT Martin gives her 31 on the season and she now currently leads the MVC in the category.
Her 1.15 runs batted in per game rank 29th nationally and are tied for third nationally among freshmen.
Her 31 total RBI are tied for the fourth-most nationally among freshmen.
Her 31 RBI are the 10th-most in a single-season by a freshman in program history.
She is 19 RBI shy of breaking Taylor Orsburn's 2011 freshman record of 49 and 21 RBI shy of breaking SIU's single-season record of 51, set by both Allie VadeBoncouer (2012) and Katie Wilson (2010).