Coming off of a successful weekend with two wins over the regionally ranked Salukis, 10-2,
5-3, which earned the Birds the top spot in Valley standings, Illinois State will take on Valley foe Indiana State in a doubleheader on Wednesday at Price Field in Terre Haute, Ind., at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Illinois State (13-11, 7-1) won the battle for first place in the conference last weekend after a tough contest in Carbondale winning two of three games. Now, the Birds will move to their next destination, Terre Haute, to take on the Sycamores of Indiana State (11-16, 2-7) focusing on what head coach
Melinda Fischer said is important for her teams continued success.
This has been a big week for us since all of our games are on the road, including Indiana State tomorrow, said Fischer of the teams trips to Iowa and Southern Illinois last week. We had some things show up in the games that we hadnt seen before due to some inexperience and a couple of mental mistakes which is what we tried to focus on in practice yesterday.
We dont have a lot of time to fix all of those things when youre playing every other day like we are now. So were just trying to emphasize the basics and keep everything very simple and do what we need to do to play well, added Fischer.
The Redbird roster is looking tough going into Wednesdays game, as six of the Birds are batting a .260 or above, which has helped place Illinos State fourth in team batting with a .272 behind Northern Iowa, Drake and Indiana State.
Junior Abbie Scott and freshman Kate Stake had a great week at the plate batting a .421 and .333 for the Birds, including a double and home run from Scott and a double and four RBI from Stake. Cutie Taylor remains a dominator for the Birds still leading the Valley in home runs with six in 24 games. She is displaying a .613 slugging percentage and a powerful .362 batting average where shes listed sixth on the conference leadership board.
Indiana State currently leads the conference in hitting with a team batting average of .320 with multiple players listed in the Valleys batting categories, which Fischer explains she is well aware of.
We havent seen Indiana State since last year and we havent seen their new players, so I think our concern is to take care of ourselves, Fischer said. They are showing some awesome batting averages and some of their players are doing some great things statistically, so we need to be aware of that and handle it the best we can.
Under Fischer the Redbirds hold a record of 31-8 over the Sycomores including a two game win streak dating back to the 2000 season when the two teams battled in Terra Haute. Last season the Birds defeated Indiana State, 1-0, 4-3, in a doubleheader played on the Redbirds home turf.
