Illinois States Jeremy Pickrel went 1-3 with an RBI, but behind 10 strikeouts from their starting pitcher, coupled with five Redbird errors, Wichita State defeated ISU 12-1 in seven innings Friday night at Redbird Field.
Wichitas Mike Pelfrey pitched all seven innings, allowing only two hits and surrendering only one run to go along with his 10 strikeouts. Pelfreys (4-0) strikeout total matches his career high.
Illinois States Todd Stein (3-1) took his first loss of 2004. Stein went five innings and gave up 11 hits. However, only six of the nine runs he gave up were earned.
The only chance we had tonight was to keep it close, said Illinois State head coach Jim Brownlee. Pelfrey was outstanding all night long and really got into a groove late. He was probably mid-90s in the final innings.
After Wichita got two runs in the top of the first, Illinois State answered right back, as Pickrel drove in Nate Whitney to make it 2-1. Unfortunateley, thats as close as the Redbirds would get, as the Shockers went on a scoring barage.
The Shockers would get two runs in the third, five in the fifth, two in the sixth and one in the seventh for their 12 run total. The five run fifth was led off by back-to-back home runs by Logan Sorensen and Drew Moffitt.
We are going to have to bring our A-game if we are going to beat these guys. Its too bad we brought our F-game tonight, said Brownlee.
Illinois State falls to 9-14 overall and 4-5 in the Missouri Valley Conference. WSU improves to 17-5 on the year and remains perfect at 9-0 in the league.
The two teams will play two tomorrow, as first pitch for game one is set for 1:00 p.m. Kyle Bloom will start game two and Eric Theisen will go in game three of the series for Illinois State.
