May 3, 2009
Box Score
2009 State Farm MVC Tournament Bracket
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Michelle Henderson went 3-of-4 and had two RBI with 12 putouts en route to the Illinois State softball teams, 4-0, (24-25, 12-11 MVC) regular season Missouri Valley Conference finale win over Evansville (14-34, 4-19) at Cooper Stadium Sunday afternoon. The Redbirds ended their series with the Purple Aces 2-1.
Sophomore Abby Olson also contributed to the teams' dominate offense with a RBI and went 2-of-3, to tally two runs.
"The keys of today's game were solid pitching, we took advantage of some mistakes and I thought that we were able to capitalize for the most part when we got runners in the scoring position," said Head coach Melinda Fischer. "I thought that we played a solid game of softball."
Illinois State scored four runs- one earned- off of Purple Aces pitcher Jennifer McKee. While Redbird pitcher Megan Warner only allowed four hits and improved to 6-0 in the circle.
"I thought that Megan had a consistent day of pitching," said Fischer. "She hit her spots pretty well and just pitched a great game."
Costly errors by Evansville's short stop Amanda Ockomom in the first inning resulted in two runs by Illinois State's Niki Stansell and Olson. Stansell started the batting order off with a single line drive to the shortstop, the ball was overthrown from EU's shortstop advancing Stansell to second base.
In the same inning, Olson reached second on an overthrown ball from the shortstop to advance Stansell home. Olson was sent home, by Henderson who advanced to second base.
Henderson picked up her second RBI of the game in the third inning to send Olson home and score her second run of the game. Then in the sixth inning Olson tallied a RBI to get pitch runner Brianna Lizen home.
Up next for the Redbirds is the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, which will be held at the Eastside Center May 7-9, in East Peoria, Ill. ISU is the No. 5 seed and will face No. 8 Indiana State in the first game of the eight-team tournament Thursday at 11 a.m. The winner of that game will play No. 4 Drake at 4 p.m. that same day
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