JACKS MOVE ON TO WICHITA FOR TWO

Tuesday, March 9

Wichita, Kan.

3 p.m.

South Dakota State University

Wichita State

Photo by: Courtesy Photo

3/8/2021 4:30:00 PM | Softball

Games 11 and 12: South Dakota State (9-1) at Wichita State (10-2)

When	Tuesday, March 9 \| 3 and 5:30 p.m.
Where	Wilkins Stadium \| Wichita, Kansas
TV	GoShockers.com
Radio	None
Live Stats	ShockerStats.com
Game Notes	South Dakota State \| Wichita State \| The Summit League
Social Media	Twitter \| Instagram \| #GRIT

Two teams off to fast starts in the 2021 college softball season will clash Tuesday, when South Dakota State travels to Wichita State for doubleheader action.

Game times are set for 3 and 5:30 p.m. at Wilkins Softball Stadium in Wichita, Kansas.

SDSU enters the nonconference twinbill with a 9-1 overall record. The Jackrabbits have reeled off nine consecutive wins since a season-opening loss to Iowa State, including sweeping five games this past weekend at the Colorado Classic.

The Jackrabbits' 9-1 record marks the best start through 10 games in program history, surpassing 8-2 starts on six occasions (1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1996 and 2003). The 1996 squad lost its first two games before going on a school-record 14-game winning streak en route to hosting the NCAA?Division II North Central Regional.

Wichita State, meanwhile, has posted a 10-2 record thus far in 2021 and is on an eight-game winning streak. The Shockers also turned in a 5-0 weekend, sweeping games at the Boerner Invitational in Arlington, Texas, including a 3-1 victory over 23rd-ranked Iowa State in the finale.

THE SERIES: Tuesday's games will mark the fifth and sixth meetings between SDSU and Wichita State on the softball diamond. The Shockers have won all four previous meetings, starting with a 5-2 victory during the 1983 season in Oklahoma City.

The two programs last met on Feb. 17, 2012, with Wichita State recording a 4-1 victory in a game played in Denton, Texas. Brittney Osborn homered for Wichita State and Katie Armagost struck out five in a complete-game effort. Morgan McCabe drove in Devon Reick with the lone SDSU run in the bottom of the sixth.

SHORT HOPS: Following are some quick notes regarding the South Dakota State softball team following its successful weekend at the Colorado Classic:

The Jackrabbits homered in each of the five games, ending with eight home runs in the five games.
Cylie Halvorson hit a two-run homer in each of the first three games of the weekend and leads the team with four round-trippers this season.
Summit League Player of the Week Rozelyn Carrillo also homered three times on the weekend.
Carrillo's five-RBI performance against Northern Colorado on March 7 came a year to the day since Allison Yoder tallied five RBIs in a win over Holy Cross. Halvorson matched that total the next day, March 8, 2020, versus Holy Cross.
Mia Elliott hit the Jackrabbits' first grand slam of the season in the March 7 finale versus Colorado State. Elliott has hit the last two grand slams for SDSU, connecting on one March 6, 2020, against Florida Gulf Coast.
Hannah Loving hit her first home run as a Jackrabbit in the March 5 victory over Northern Colorado.
Kelsey Lenox has hit safely in seven consecutive games.
The Jackrabbits hit .370 as a team over the weekend, outscoring the opposition 44-10.
SDSU played nearly flawlessly in the field, committing only one error for a .992 fielding percentage.
For the season, the Jackrabbits are fielding at a .977 clip (6 errors in 264 total chances).
Freshman pitcher Tori Kniesche improved to 4-0 on the season with a pair of victories over the weekend. The right-hander from Wayne, Nebraska, has struck out 34 batters in 24 innings.
In Grace Glanzer's no-hitter March 5 against Oregon State, 13 of the Beavers' 21 outs came on ground balls. Glanzer struck out four.
Glanzer pitched back-to-back shutouts for the first time in her career and threw a total of 16 scoreless innings in three weekend appearances.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: After a 5-0 weekend at the Colorado Classic, the Jackrabbit softball team recorded another type of sweep Monday as SDSU's Grace Glanzer and Rozelyn Carrillo were honored as Summit League Pitcher and Player of the Week, respectively.

Glanzer, a returning freshman from Sioux Falls, pitched 16 consecutive scoreless innings in three appearances (two starts), highlighted by a no-hitter against Oregon State on March 5. She struck out four and walked three in her no-hit effort, which was followed by another seven-inning, four-hit shutout the next day against Colorado State.

In her final appearance of the weekend, Glanzer closed out the Jackabbits 7-1 victory over Colorado State on March 7 with two shutout innings in relief.

Carrillo (pronounced cah-REE-oh), a freshman shortstop from Palmdale, California, hit safely in all five games and finished with a .458 batting average (7-for-16) with three home runs, two doubles and nine runs batted in. Highlighting her weekend play was a 3-for-3, five-RBI performance against Northern Colorado on March 7 that included a home run and double.

Carrillo added homers in the March 5 opener against Oregon State and the March 6 victory at Colorado State en route to a 1.125 slugging percentage. She also played errorless defense in 15 total chances.

The Jackrabbits have had the Summit League Pitcher of the Week in each of the two weeks they have played. Freshman Tori Kniesche was honored Feb. 15, after two strong starts the opening weekend of the season.

NO-HITTER HISTORY: Grace Glanzer's no-hitter against Oregon State on March 5 marked the second year in a row a Jackrabbit pitcher accomplished the feat.

Morgan DeMarais hurled a no-hitter March 8, 2020, against Merrimack, in a game played in Madeira Beach, Florida. DeMarais struck out seven and did not walk a batter, missing out on a perfect game due to two hit batters and a Jackrabbit error.

Glanzer's no-hitter is the sixth on record in program history; the others:
• Jessica Jones, April 24, 1990, versus Nebraska-Omaha (W, 1-0);
• Melissa Alleven, March 29, 2002, versus Northern State (W, 17-1; 5 inn.);
• Meggan Staton, March 3, 2003, vs. Rollins (W, 1-0; 8 inn.);
• Meggan Staton, March 6, 2003, vs. Lynn (W, 5-0);
• Morgan DeMarais, March 8, 2020, vs. Merrimack (W, 12-0).

PRESEASON POLL: South Dakota State has been picked to finish second in the upcoming Summit League softball race, according to a preseason poll conducted among the league's seven head coaches that was announced in mid-February.

North Dakota State, which has won the last six Summit League championships, claimed the top spot with six first-place votes and 36 points. The Jackrabbits claimed the other first-place vote to finish second with 31 points. South Dakota was third with 25 points, followed by Omaha with 19 points.

Rounding out the preseason poll were Kansas City (16), North Dakota (12) and Western Illinois (8).

The Jackrabbits compiled a 15-8 record in an abbreviated 2020 season that was canceled before the start of league play and return a solid nucleus led by Summit League Players to Watch Grace Glanzer and Cylie Halvorson.

A native of Sioux Falls, Glanzer burst onto the scene as a freshman in 2020, leading the league with 74 strikeouts and a 12-2 record. She finished with a 1.73 earned run average and held opponents to a .215 batting average.

Halvorson, also a Sioux Falls native, paced the Summit League with seven doubles while hitting .406 with 19 runs batted in in 22 games. She notched eight multi-hit games and recorded a .641 slugging percentage in 2020.

Summit League play for the Jackrabbits begins March 27 at Kansas City, with the four-team Summit League Softball Championship scheduled for May 12-15 in Fargo, North Dakota.

KNIESCHE OFF TO QUICK START: South Dakota State freshman Tori Kniesche was honored as Summit League Pitcher of the Week Feb. 15 following an impressive opening weekend on the softball diamond.

A right-hander from Wayne, Nebraska, Kniesche posted a 2-0 record with a 1.00 earned run average and 23 strikeouts in a pair of seven-inning complete-game efforts for the Jackrabbits at the Doc Halverson UNI-Dome Classic in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

In her collegiate debut against Drake on Feb. 12, Kniesche struck out 12 and walked four, allowing one run on three hits. The next day, Kniesche fanned 11 Northern Iowa hitters, once again giving up only one run and three hits.

Kniesche went on to record two more victories this past weekend at the Colorado Classic, pitching five innings in a March 5 win over Northern Colorado and another five innings March 7 against Colorado State.

For the season, Kniesche is 4-0 with a 1.17 ERA and 34 strikeouts in 24 innings.

DAUGHERTY SETS THE TABLE: Jackrabbit outfielder Peyton Daugherty has paced the SDSU offense during the first month of the season. The junior from Ankeny, Iowa, has reached base safely in all 10 games this season while batting out of the leadoff spot, and has recorded at least one hit in nine games.

Daugherty is hitting a team-best .429 (15-for-35) with five multi-hit games and leads the team with 12 runs scored.

A junior from Ankeny, Iowa, Daugherty hit safely in all five games at the season-opening Doc Halvorson UNI-Dome Classic in Cedar Falls, Iowa, posting three multi-hit efforts en route to a .471 average (8-for-17) with four runs scored and two runs batted in. She also stole a base in each of the last four games of the tournament.

GOOD THINGS HAPPEN IN THREES: South Dakota State accomplished a rare feat in the sixth inning of its Feb. 12 season opener against Iowa State — hitting three triples in the same inning. Jocelyn Carrillo started the parade of three-baggers with a leadoff triple and pinch-hitter Emma Osmundson followed two batters later with a triple in her first collegiate at-bat. Peyton Daugherty then stepped to the plate and made it three triples in four at-bats in the inning, lining one to the right-center gap to plate Osmundson with what was then the tying run.

Carrillo notched her team-best second triple of the season March 5 against Northern Colorado, upping the team total to four.

SDSU registered six triples as a team in 22 games during the abbreviated 2020 season.

SISTER ACT: Sisters Rozelyn and Jocelyn Carrillo both put up big numbers during the Colorado Classic. Together, the Palmdale, California, natives combined for eight extra-base hits and 15 RBIs in the five games.

Jocelyn, the team's starting center fielder, .hit .333 (5-for-15) with two doubles, a triple and six RBIs. Rozelyn's statistics included a .438 batting average (7-for-16) with two doubles, three home runs and nine RBIs en route to Summit League Player of the Week honors.

COACH WOOD: Krista Wood begins her seventh season as head coach at South Dakota State in 2021.

Already the program's winningest coach with a 163-144 record after being hired to lead the program in August of 2014, Wood boasts a 433-298 overall career record after eight successful seasons at Wayne State College.

She has coached five NFCA All-Midwest Region selections (the first four in SDSU's Division I era) and 18 All-Summit League selections in her time at SDSU, including the 2016 Summit League Freshman of the Year (Ali Herdliska) and 2018 Player of the Year (Brittney Morse). Herdliska is the only Jackrabbit to earn All-Summit League honors four times in her career, and twice picked up an NFCA All-Midwest Region nod.

The Jackrabbits have won 20 or more games four times under coach Wood, and prior to the cancellation of the 2020 Summit League Championships, had reached the league's year-end tournament in each of her first five seasons, including a championship series run in 2018.

SDSU won 37 games in back-to-back 2018 and 2019 seasons, earning berths in the National Invitational Softball Championship both seasons. Wood was named the Summit League's Coach of the Year in 2018 while guiding her team to a program-record .673 winning percentage, breaking the 35-win mark for the second time in history.

Her 2020 squad won 15 games and posted a Summit League-best.652 winning percentage before COVID-19 precautions ended the NCAA's Division I softball season nationwide.

Wood put together a 270-154 mark at Wayne State, turning the Wildcat program into a winner after inheriting a 10-win squad when she was hired before the 2007 season. She brought WSC to three consecutive NCAA Division II National Tournaments between 2009-11, including a 2010 NCAA Central Region crown. The Wildcats won a school-record 43 games during that season and claimed the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament title.

Wood coached internationally during the summer of 2009, leading a United States team (sponsored by USA Athletes International) at the Oldenzaal Invitational in Holland.

A native of Missouri Valley, Iowa, Wood spent two seasons as an assistant coach at St. Cloud State University after a stellar playing career at Nebraska-Omaha from 1999-2003. She helped the Mavericks to the NCAA Division II national championship in 2001 as a sophomore and finished her career as the all-time winningest pitcher in Maverick softball history with 106 wins and 530 career strikeouts. She was named to the school's athletic hall of fame in 2020.

In the 2001 national championship game, Wood tossed a two-hit shutout with five strikeouts in a 4-0 win over Lewis University. She also ranks second in career shutouts at UNO with 43, and earned numerous honors as a player at UNO, earning First Team All-NCC honors three times, while also collecting three All-NCC Academic Team awards. She earned NFCA All-Region First Team honors in 2002 and a Second Team All-Region selection in 2001. Wood also earned North Central Conference Freshman of the Year in 2000.

Wood also coached at the high school level, serving as the pitching coach at Omaha Gross High School in the fall of 2003 and at state-qualifying Omaha Westside High School in 2004.

Wood earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education K-12 with an endorsement in coaching from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2004 and received a master's degree in sport management in 2006 from St. Cloud State University.

THE ROSTER: The 2021 SDSU softball roster features 24 players from six different states and one foreign country. Of the 24 players, eight are from South Dakota, four hail from Iowa and California and three are Nebraska natives. Two players call Minnesota and Missouri home. The international player hails from Italy.

By class, three are seniors, six are juniors, five are sophomores and 10 are freshmen.

A LOOK AHEAD: The Jackrabbits' schedule for the remainder of the week has been altered. SDSU has had a scheduled doubleheader against Kansas moved up to Wednesday at 3 p.m. due to impending inclement weather, with the two teams slated to play a single game at 4 p.m. Thursday. The Jackrabbits are slated to close out the week with single games Friday and Saturday against Northern Iowa as part of the Rock Chalk Challenge. Game times are to be determined.

All games the remainder of the week are scheduled to be played at Arrocha Ballpark in Lawrence, Kansas.

-GoJacks.com-