MVC Championship To Open On Wednesday Morning
The 2021 Missouri Valley Conference Softball Championship comes to Cooper Stadium with the University of Evansville softball team set to face Loyola in the opening game on Wednesday at 11 a.m. All games in the tournament will be carried live on ESPN+.
Last Time Out
– UE closed out the regular season last weekend at Missouri State in a shortened series due to weather
– Friday’s opener was a pitcher’s duel with Izzy Vetter and the duo of Madison Hunsaker and Gracie Johnson putting on a clinic…MSU picked up the win with a run in the 10th inning
– Vetter set her career mark with 14 strikeouts in the contest
– In the second contest, the Bears finished with a 6-1 win
A History Lesson
– This season marks the second time that the University of Evansville has hosted the MVC Softball Championship with the other coming in 2003…in that tournament, Evansville advanced to the championship game to battle Creighton, who won by a final of 6-2
– In the 2019 championship in Peoria, Ill, the Aces squared off against Valparaiso, falling by a 50- final…Eryn Gould went 2-3 with a walk in the contest and was named to the All-Tournament Team
Approaching a Record
– Eryn Gould is set to leave her mark on the UE record book following the completion of her career with records set to fall on both the career and single season sides
– She is just one walk away from tying the all-time program mark of 97 while her batting and on-base percentages are tops in school history
– Reaching base in any way possible has been a strength for Gould, whose .562 on-base tally ranks 15th in the country
– Upon recording her 100th at-bat, she became eligible for UE’s single season marks…her current batting average of .417 is on pace to break the program mark that Staci Hatz set in 1998 when she batted .408…Hatz was the only player in program history to finish a season batting over .400…Gould also has an on-base percentage of .562, which is also on pace for the program mark…Brittany Herald currently holds the UE record of .511, which she accomplished in 2007
New Strikeout Mark
– Izzy Vetter threw the first no-hitter of her collegiate career on May2 against Bradley…just a day earlier, she showed signs of what may be coming as she sat the first 11 Braves batters down in order in the opener
– The effort saw her keep the Braves hitters off balance over the course of five innings…it was Evansville’s first no-hitter since February 16, 2019 when Emily Lockhart accomplished the feat against Southern in the finale of the Roul’s Deli MVC-SWAC Challenge
– With three wins in UE’s four games between April 28 and May 2, Vetter owns 13 wins on the season, the most for an Evansville player since Morgan Florey won 14 games in 2017
– In a 10-inning performance at Missouri State, Vetter set her career high with 14 strikeouts…her total of 190 strikeouts
Putting a Streak Together
– Jessica Fehr has recorded a hit in 15 of the last 18 games while seeing her average rise from .260 to .330
– She has recorded a hit in 22 of her last 55 at-bats…despite an 8-game hit streak coming to an end in the opener against Indiana State, she reached base with a walk before going 2-4 with a triple in game two and has reached safely in each of the last 19 games…in the Bradley series, she recorded five hits in nine at-bats
