Softball opens Summit League play at IUPUI

Friday, March 24

Indianapolis, Ind.

1 p.m. CT / 2 p.m. ET

South Dakota State University

IUPUI

Photo by: Laura Mullen

3/23/2017 9:31:00 AM | Softball

SDSU Game Notes

Date	Opponent	Time	Live Stats
March 24	at IUPUI	1 p.m. CT (DH)	No Live Stats for Game 1
March 24	at IUPUI	3 p.m. CT (DH)	IUPUIJags.com
March 25	at IUPUI	10 a.m. CT	IUPUIJags.com

First Pitch

South Dakota State opens Summit League play this weekend with a three-game series at IUPUI, March 24-25.
Forecasted weather in the Indianapolis area forced a schedule adjustment to the weekend plans, as the Jackrabbits and Jaguars will now play a doubleheader Friday at 1 and 3 p.m. CT / 2 and 4 p.m. ET, followed by a single game Saturday at 10 a.m. CT.
SDSU (13-18) is coming off a weekend stay at the Hawkeye Invitational in Iowa City, Iowa, where the team went 1-4. Prior to the tournament, the Jacks had won nine of its previous 12 contests.
SDSU and IUPUI are tied in the all-time series, 12-all. The Jacks and Jaguars are also tied in series games played at home, away or neutral sites. State dropped two contests in last year's three-game set with the Jags in Brookings, S.D., and will look for their first series win against IUPUI since 2010.
The Jacks are hitting .255 as a team through 31 games with 37 doubles, seven triples and 13 home runs. The team is 13 of 16 on stolen base attempts and has scored 115 runs with 107 RBI.
From the circle, South Dakota State holds a 2.96 combined ERA and has struck out 160 batters, allowing 88 earned runs through 208 innings played.

IUPUI Jaguars

IUPUI (10-17) has won four straight games, going 4-1 at the FGCU Battle at the Beach last weekend in Fort Myers, Florida.
The Jaguars are hitting .262 as a team with 41 doubles, three triples and 17 home runs. IUPUI si 8 of 9 on stolen base attempts and has scored 187 runs with 90 RBI.
Maggie Good leads the team with a .367 (29 of 79) average through 27 starts, racking up six doubles with a team-high eight home runs and 29 RBI. Alyssa Matson (.327) and Taylor Chitwood (.325) have started all 27 games and join Good above the .300 mark at the plate. Matson leads the Jags with eight doubles while Chitwood has seven doubles and 14 RBI.
IUPUI's pitching staff has a 4.74 combied ERA with 108 strikeouts in 170 innings.
Erica Tharp was last week's Summit League Pitcher of the Week, posting a 0.50 ERA in 14 innings of work with 18 strikeouts over two starts.
Tharp (4-9) has a 4.03 ERA for the year with 42 strikeouts in 67.2 innings pitched. Nickole Finch (4.96 ERA) is 6-7 and leads the team with 65 strikeouts in 91.2 innings.
Head Coach Heather Tarter is in her first year at IUPUI and is 85-77 in her four-year head coaching career.

Jacks at the Plate

Ali Herdliska's 10 doubles leads the conference and ranks 20th nationally as of March 23.
Lyndsey Crist's three sacrifice flies leads the conference and is 12th best in NCAA Division I as of March 23.
Julia Andersen and Ali Herdliska each have nine multi-hit games for the Jacks this season while Herdliska has seven multi-RBI performances. Herdliska paces the team with 31 hits while Andersen is second with 27.
Brittney Morse leads the Jacks with six home runs and is second with six doubles.
Ali Herdliska is fifth on SDSU's career home run record list with 18 long balls. She is one shy of Shelly Brandel for 4th, and just two shy of No. 3 on the list - Ashley Kalina.
Ali Herdliska tallied five RBI Feb. 26 against Alabama A&M. That mark is second best for a single game in SDSU's Division I history.
Lyndsey Crist scored four runs in SDSU's win over South Carolina State, a mark that is tied for the school's single game NCAA Division I record.
Danielle Steffo drove in four runs against South Carolina State, the second best performance for Jack this season.
Danielle Steffo has SDSU's lone four-hit game of the season thus far as she went 4 for 4 against St. Bonaventure March 7. That is tied for third best in the school's NCAA Division I record book.
Emily Ensrud has slid into the leadoff role lately, making 14 appearances in the lineup with 11 starts. Ensrud is hitting .317 for the Jacks and reached safely in nine of her first 11 games, including a streak of eight straight from March 8 to March 18.
Mallory McQuistan holds the school's longest hit streak of the season, connecting in six consecutive games from Feb. 24 to March 7.
Lyndsey Crist has worked 18 walks this season and is just four shy of joining SDSU's single season record list top 10 (No. 10 has 22). The record for single season walks is 34, set last year by Ali Herdliska.

Jacks in the Circle

Abby Deane set the school's Division I strikeouts mark March 7 against St. Bonaventure, when she sat down 13 opponents in five innings. She also struck out 10 Feb. 11 against Northern Iowa.
Madison Hope has racked up two saves already on the year, which ranks 23rd in the NCAA and is one shy of SDSU's single season saves record.
Ashlyn Bender leads the team with a 2.46 ERA through 18 appearances, going 6-6 with 42 strikeouts.
Abby Deane (7-10) has tossed 103.1 innings to pace the squad with 104 strikeouts on the year. That strikeout tally is 29th best in NCAA Division I.
SDSU has a sub-3.00 ERA, showing continued improvement in the circle since the arrival of Krista Wood and Shannon Pivovar three years ago. In 2014, State had a 6.03 combined ERA and lowered it to 4.31 in 2015.

Summit League Players of the Week

Newcomer Brittney Morse made the most of her weekend debut as a Jackrabbit en route to earning Summit League Player of the Week honors Feb. 13. Morse hit .400 (6 of 15) over five starts and blasted four home runs. She posted 1.200 slugging and .471 on base percentages for the weekend and picked up six RBI.
Ali Herdliska picked up her first career Summit League Player of the Week honor March 13. She hit .417 (15 for 35) on the week with six doubles, two triples and a home run, driving in 14 with five multi-hit games and four multi-RBI games.

Jacks picked fifth in Summit League Poll

SDSU was tabbed fifth in the 2017 Summit League Preseason Coaches' Poll, released early February by the league office.
The Jacks have earned the No. 5 seed in the previous two Summit League Championships and will look to improve their seeding for the 2017 year-end tournament.
North Dakota State, the three-time defending Summit League Tournament champion, was picked first.

Herdliska named Player to Watch

As part of The Summit League's preseason poll release, eight Players to Watch were selected by league coaches. SDSU's Ali Herdliska, the 2016 Freshman of the Year was part of the list after earning All-Summit League First Team honors last year.
2016 saw Herdliska match the school's single-season home run record (16) while the first year player broke the single-season records for walks (34), total bases (108) and slugging percentage (.725). She also had 45 runs batted in, the second best performance in Jackrabbit history.

#BackAndBetter

Three All-Conference selections from the 2016 season lead the Jackrabbits into the new campaign as the team looks to continue its upward trend since the arrival of head coach Krista Wood two years ago.
Herdliska, mentioned above as a 2017 Player to Watch, was a First Team pick and the Freshman of the Year after leading the team with a .322 average, 48 hits, 16 home runs and 45 RBI.
Lyndsey Crist appeared in 48 games last year for SDSU and hit .319, racking up seven doubles, five home runs and 22 RBi while posting a .983 fielding percentage. She also went 8 of 9 on steal attempts.
Abbey Murphy started 53 of 55 games for State and hit .280, tallying 10 doubles and three home runs with 21 RBI. Additionally, she walked 14 times, had six stolen bases and recorded a .943 fielding percentage.
Two senior pitchers, Ashlyn Bender and Katie Lang, anchor the staff for the Jacks. Bender went 9-18 last year with a team-leading 4.00 ERA over 169.2 innings. Lang made five appearances, threw 9.1 innings and had three strikeouts with a 4.50 ERA.

Anderson Bats Renews Partnership

Anderson Bat Company announced last fall its renewal of a partnership with the South Dakota State Jackrabbit softball program on Thursday as the official softball bat supplier for the 2017 season.
The Jackrabbits will be swinging the Rocketech 2.0 and Supernova 2.0 Fast Pitch Softball Bats in the 2017 season.
Anderson Bat Company is a leading designer and manufacturer of high performance softball and baseball bats. Established in 1999, our labor of love has evolved from a private labeling operation into the industry's leading manufacturer of alloy and composite baseball and softball bats, and the best is yet to come.

2016 Season Review

2016 was a year of new heights for the Jackrabbit softball program as head coach Krista Wood completed her second season at the helm. South Dakota State finished the year 23-34, earning the fifth seed in the Summit League Tournament for the second consecutive year.
SDSU won 20 games in consecutive years for the first time in a decade. It was the 12th 20-win season in the program's 46-year history.
Ali Herdliska and Lyndsey Crist were All-Summit League First Team selections while Abbey Murphy earned second team honors.
South Dakota State tied an NCAA record with four consecutive home runs against Fort Wayne (April 30, 2016) as Lauren Chirnside, Abbey Murphy, Jordyn Sturgeon and Danielle Steffo went back-to-back-to-back-to-back in the fourth inning of a 12-1 win.
Devan Larsen ended her career with a school record 35 home runs, hitting 12 as a senior to finish second on the team.
Ali Herdliska tied Larson's single-season home run record with 16 round-trippers while also setting school records in slugging percentage (.725), total bases (108) and walks (34). Her 45 runs batted in was second most in school history for a season. In terms of single games, Herdliska walked four times against South Dakota on May 7, 2016 to reset the school record.
Christian McKone swiped a school record 29 bases out of 31 steal attempts.
Chirnside set a single-game school record (tying the NCAA mark) with four doubles on March 22, 2016 against Drake.