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April 22, 2008

While Illinois State's previous meeting with Indiana State was quite an easy one for the Redbirds, as they swept the Sycamores (12-6 and 2-1) in Terre Haute, Ind., April 2, the version of the Indiana State softball team that Illinois State will take on Wednesday is vastly improved from what the Redbirds saw three weeks ago. Coming off a recent season-long eight-game winning streak, its longest consecutive-games won streak since 1990, Indiana State (19-20-1, 7-9 MVC) will make a trip to the Redbird Softball Complex Wednesday for a 4 p.m. game against Illinois State (21-18, 11-6 MVC) in the series finale of the home-and-home series between the two teams.

While Indiana State may have a new-found ace in its back pocket, Illinois State will come into the game no slouch of its own. The Redbirds have won 11 of their last 14 games, including 10 of their previous 12 Missouri Valley Conference games. Included in that total are four come-from-behind victories in the last three weeks, which has boosted the team's confidence coming into Wednesday's series finale against the Sycamores.

"We have played pretty solidly over the last three weeks, with the exception of about four innings over our last few games," said Illinois State head coach Melinda Fischer. "Both Amber Smith and Rachel Smith have stepped up and delivered strong performances recently for us in the circle, which has helped our team overall. Our performances last weekend (versus Wichita State) and Monday (versus Creighton) were much improved from what we experienced at Illinois (a 16-8 Illinois State loss April 16).

"Against Wichita State (Saturday and Sunday), we showed a lot of character coming back to win the series finale against the Shockers after we lost game two (Saturday). We also played well in our second game against Creighton (Monday) after losing the first game of that series."

With the Redbirds' two previous victories this season over the Sycamores in the bag, Illinois State leads the all-time series against Indiana State, 61-11. The Redbirds have suffered a loss to the Sycamores just three times in 25 games since 2000, while they racked up a 20-game winning streak in the series from May 8, 2000, to April 18, 2007. That streak was snapped when the Sycamores picked up an 8-7, 11-inning victory over the Redbirds in last season's series finale.

Thanks to its recent eight-game winning streak, which was snapped Monday after it lost both games of a doubleheader to IUPUI, Indiana State has risen from last place in The Valley standings when Illinois State last played the Sycamores (April 2) to a seventh-place MVC spot. It has done that behind the hot hitting of junior shortstop Meredith Simpson, who on Monday became the first Indiana State softball player since 2001 to be named Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Week.

As a team, the Sycamores are hitting .254, which ranks seventh in The Valley. Indiana State has been outscored by opponents, 133-166, but it is slugging at a .398 clip as a team, the third-best mark in the league.

Sycamore pitchers own a combined 3.24 earned-run average (ERA), third-worst in the MVC. Indiana State's high team ERA can be partially blamed by its .280 opponent batting average, which ranks second only to Northern Iowa's .299 opponent batting average for worst in The Valley. The leading Sycamore pitcher is Meagan McCurdy, who is 11-9 this season with a 2.71 ERA and a strong 2.5 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

"Indiana State has done very well in its last several conference games," said Fischer. "As always, we need to be ready to play because every conference game is a big game."