Wichita State baseball and softball both beat nationally-ranked Oklahoma State teams
On the same night against the same school, the Wichita State softball and baseball teams notched the best win of their respective seasons on Tuesday.
For the No. 22-ranked Shocker softball team, an 8-7 win over No. 2 Oklahoma State at Wilkins Stadium registered as the highest-ranked win in program history.
The Wichita State celebration continued an hour later when the Shocker baseball team picked up its first ranked win of the season with a 13-6 rout over No. 16 Oklahoma State at O’Brate Stadium in Stillwater.Not only did WSU earn bragging rights with the sweep of the unofficial doubleheader, but the softball team added the exact marquee win it needed to continue its push to potentially host an NCAA Regional.
The WSU softball team improved to 31-7 this season with its second top-10 win of the season, which is expected to boost its RPI ranking, currently sitting at No. 21, and bolster its case to receive a top-16 seed in the NCAA tournament. It was just the third loss of the season for the Oklahoma State softball team, which dropped to 32-3 and had its 14-game winning streak snapped.
Meanwhile, the WSU baseball team won in Stillwater for the first time since 2018 and snapped an eight-game losing streak to the Cowboys. The Shockers improved to 17-11 and won for the seventh time in their last eight games.
Both WSU teams built early leads against OSU in victories.
In the softball game, WSU scored four runs in the second inning to build a 4-0 lead, sparked by a lead-off home run by freshman Sami Hood with RBI hits following from Sydney McKinney, Lauren Lucas and Zoe Jones.
Down in Stillwater, Payton Tolle crushed a two-run home run down the right field line in the first inning and Brock Rodden drilled a grand slam to dead center to give the WSU baseball team a 7-0 lead in the fourth inning.
OSU briefly rallied to trim WSU’s lead to 7-4, but the Shockers tacked on six combined runs in the seventh and eighth innings to put the game out of reach. Garrett Pennington and David Herring each had RBI hits, while nine different Shockers finished with a hit and the team finished with 13 runs on 13 hits.
The softball game was more of an entertaining, back-and-forth affair, as the Cowgirls rallied to take a 5-4 lead in the fourth inning. But WSU conjured an immediate response in the bottom-half of the inning, as Addison Barnard and Lucas reached on singles and scored on separate errors by OSU. Freshman Taylor Sedlacek capped a four-run inning with an RBI single back up the middle to stake the Shockers to an 8-5 lead.
It was a nervy final three innings for WSU, as the Cowgirls scored two runs in the fifth inning and put the game-tying run on third base in the sixth inning, but Alison Cooper, on in relief, coaxed a fly-out to end the threat. WSU starter Lauren Howell returned to record the final three outs, which she did with minimal drama — three straight fly balls caught in the outfield.
The OSU softball team had allowed just 17 runs during its 14-game winning streak and entered with a top-25 staff ERA in the country. But the Shockers’ bats racked up eight runs — the third-most OSU has allowed this season — on 13 hits.
Both WSU teams will prepare for American Athletic Conference play a little earlier this week with Easter Sunday. The softball team travels to Memphis (6-29) for a three-game series starting Thursday, while the baseball team hosts its first conference series at Eck Stadium against Houston (14-14) with a 6 p.m. first pitch on Thursday.
