Salukis win in extra innings, as they come through with 2 in the top of the 8th, and Maddia Groff goes the distance on the mound to toss a 5-hit shutout.
Maddia is now 8-0 on the season, including four shutouts and a minuscule 0.53 ERA. THAT is impressive stuff.
Salukis hit 4 home runs in their home-opener doubleheader against Loyola Chicago (W 4-1) and Green Bay (W 9-0 6inn).
Eberle appears to have made a change to her pitching delivery, compared to what I saw on ESPN+ in her early-season starts, and is now throwing harder with more spin. Groff threw a complete game 2-hitter and moves to 9-0 on the season.
Competition gets tougher starting at 5PM at MoST - on ESPN+.
Anybody know what the deal is with Stinson? She still rehabbing from surgery? Hasn't played this year.
Do we have enough money to keep Maddie Goff??
I would be willing to donate to keeping her specifically.
Mo State had the longest home win streak in the country until today. Groff pitched a 3 hitter and SIU won 2 - 1 (although she gave up a homer in the 7th.) Shades of Amy Harre.
Now if Eberle and Lis can get their mojo back and if Stinson can come back, we can win the MVC.
Eberle gets the win as SIU whips Mo State 7 - 1. Maddia Groff threw 2 innings of relief.
Dawgs beat Drake 5 - 0 behind the pitching of Eberle and Groff.
Jackie Lis went 2 - 4 and hit her 5th HR...getting her mojo back.
Game 2 tomorrow at 2 pm.
Kudos to new head coach Jen Sewell and staff. They’ve put together a solid team! Go Dawgs!
Kudos to new head coach Jen Sewell and staff. They’ve put together a solid team! Go Dawgs!
I agree. Good decision to make our long-time assistant the new HC. She's been here 16 years.
Dawgs beat Drake again today behind the pitching of Eberle and Groff. 2 - 1
We turned a double play in the 7th to end it. Drake had only 3 hits.
Game 3 tomorrow at Noon.
For the sweep, Dawgs run rule Drake today behind the pitching of Hockerman and Eberle. 8 - 0
The win streak is now up to 15, as Maddia Groff improves to a perfect 15-0 after a tight 6-4 win just now. Eberle started, and after three unearned runs in the first, Maddia came in and went the rest of the way.
As of three days ago, no other D-1 pitcher had even reached 11-0 yet, so Maddia's in rare air right now.
Salukis are now 22-4, with another game at UIC this afternoon. I don't think they'll pick up any Top 25 votes next week, as the overall Valley strength just puts the league 17th overall, but if they can extend the streak to 20 through next week, I think SIU will finally start picking up votes in the first April poll.
The Salukis sweep UIC, as Hockerman picks up the W in a 9-1 rout. Groff came in to pitch the final three innings to close it out.
23-4, riding a 16-game win streak... WE ARE A SOFTBALL SCHOOL! 🙂
We're a softball school that gets piss poor softball coverage on siusalukis.com.
No article on our 3rd straight MVC sweep.
I watched some of that last game. UIC is absolutely awful, but we've got a good team with a lot of talent. Frosh. Maddia Groff is now 15 - 0. In 96 innings, she has only given up 10 walks but has 100 SOs. Impressive!
As strong as this start's been, at this point they're still going to need to win the auto-bid to get into the NCAA tourney, for a couple of reasons:
1 - the Valley overall's just not that strong (currently ranked #17th overall in conference RPI), so SIU's not able to rack up many solid wins in conference. Outside of UNI and Belmont, the rest of the league's pretty lackluster.
2 - those three big canceled games against Big Ten teams back in February that would've given SIU three shots at top-notch out-of-conference wins, and taking even two of those three would've paid off big-time down the road. Anything to bolster the SOS would've helped, so that bad weather was unfortunate timing for SIU.
All they can do now is keep piling on the wins, as many as they can get here in the Valley, and possibly cracking the Top 25 down the road would help (I don't expect any votes in tomorrow's poll, but should they stay perfect through the UNI series this weekend, the votes should start popping up next Tuesday).
The 16-game win streak ends at UT-Martin in a 5-2 loss this afternoon. Next three at home vs. Northern Iowa are key to not only winning the Valley, but getting that RPI back up, as it took a hit and fell to #67 today.
As of this moment, UNI's the only other Valley team in the RPI top 100, and the Panthers are THUMPING Illinois this afternoon, currently up 9-0 in the 5th.
