April 3, 2009
Final Stats
WICHITA, Kan. - Illinois State starting pitcher Ryan Camp used the good and the bad to help erase the ugly, as the Redbirds snapped a 25-game road losing streak to Wichita State with a 5-4 victory at Eck Stadium Friday night.
Camp (3-1) struck out a career-high nine batters and tied his career-high with five walks while hitting two batters, but held the Shockers (15-11, 1-1 MVC) to one run over six white-knuckle innings. The Redbirds (13-7, 4-1 MVC) won their third-consecutive Friday night game to start Missouri Valley Conference play and won their first game against the Shockers in Wichita since April 22, 1995.
"It's fun, it's fun," Illinois State head coach Jim Brownlee said. "That's baseball. Ryan Camp is amazing in how he steps it up. I knew he was a keeper when we made six errors behind him at Minnesota and it never bothered him. Tonight, he had a no-hitter going into the fourth and he struck out the last two guys he faced to get out of the sixth with two runners on - that was awesome. He was like a big league pitcher."
Camp and Wichita State starter Tim Kelley combined for nine strikeouts in the game's first 10 outs and the two fanned a total of 19 batters in the game. While Camp's pitches proved elusive, his real magic was escaping with runners in scoring position. The Shockers stranded 13 base runners throughout the game, including leaving runners on and in scoring position in five of Camp's six innings.
Illinois State scored the game's first run in the top of the second inning when Ryan Court scored from third on a dropped third strike to Corey Maines. It was the first of the five runs that the Redbirds would have to scratch for in the contest. Illinois State finished with four sacrifice hits and two sacrifice flies, while scoring three runs in three different innings without recording a base hit.
"We got every run in that we needed to get in," Brownlee said. "It was fun. Our guys were ready to play - you could tell in batting practice. They weren't intimidated."
Wichita State scored its only run against Camp in the fifth inning on a sacrifice fly by after a pair of doubles to lead off the inning. Illinois State led 3-1 when Camp left the game and moved its lead to 4-1 before a two-run home run by Ryan Jones off Kyle Nelson re-energized the Shockers.
Wichita State walked the bases loaded and walked in a run in the top of the ninth and the Redbirds looked as if they would repeat the favor in the bottom half of the inning. Wichita State made it a 5-4 game on a single by Cody Lassley and loaded the bases against Redbird closer Jim Sajewich, but Taylor Brown to ground into a game-ending double play.
Landinn Eckhardt scored two runs for Illinois State and had one of the team's six hits. Court finished the game 1-for-2 with a pair of walks and an RBI in addition to his run scored.
Bret Bascue and Brown both finished with two hits for Wichita State. Kelley (2-2) was tagged with the loss despite striking out a career-high 10 batters and scattering six hits over 7.2 innings.
Illinois State and Wichita State continue the three-game series Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m., with Ryan Copeland scheduled to pitch for the Redbirds against Charlie Lowell at Eck Stadium.
