The RoundHouse | 5/9/2018 5:29:00 PM
By
Paul Suellentrop
It's not home-field advantage. It is neutral-field familiarity and that might help Wichita State softball this weekend in the American Athletic Conference Championships.
The Shockers played three games at USF Softball Stadium in Tampa, Fla., last weekend, site of the conference tournament. They scored four runs in three games against South Florida and lost two of three. The stadium's spacious outfield didn't help the conference's home run leader.
"We really kind of tried too hard offensively," Wichita State coach
Kristi Bredbenner said. "Instead of trusting the process and being patient up at the plate, I felt like we tried to hit too many balls out of a ballpark that is very difficult."
The third-seeded Shockers (30-20) stayed in Florida after the series and practiced at the field before Thursday's opening game (9 a.m.) against sixth-seeded Tulsa (30-23). The stadium's dimensions of 190 feet down the lines and 230 in center are augmented by a 9-foot fence in the corners (Wilkins Stadium's dimensions are 195 and 210).
"It definitely affects the long-ball a lot," Shocker first baseman
Ryleigh Buck said.
The dimensions won't feel new to the Shockers on Thursday and that can help offensively and defensively.
They spent their practice time emphasizing line drives, hitting with backspin, moving runners and groundballs. They hit 57 home runs this season, 15 more than any other American team, and 30 in 21 conference games. They hit two in the weekend series.
"We've got to get base hits, and not try to use the long-ball," Bredbenner said. "Because the long-ball is a long flyball out here at South Florida. It's hard ground-balls – make the defense work for it. I think we had 15 flyball outs on Sunday. A flyball out in this ballpark is a super-easy out."
Wichita State is capable of production without smacking the ball over the fence. It led the American by hitting .285 in conference play with a conference-leading 25 doubles. Its on-base percentage of .365 in 21 American games ranks second.
"Our biggest focus going into this weekend is working on getting on top of the ball a little bit more, hitting line drives, up the middle more and not trying to blast things out of the park," Buck said. "Even though we are a big home run hitting team, our whole concept this whole year has been about hitting line drives and staying up the middle."
The Shockers lost the regular-season series to Tulsa 2-1. Tulsa pitcher Emily Watson, a second-team all-conference pick, struck out 11 batters in a 9-3 win in the opener and six in a 3-2 win in the finale. She held the Shockers to 13 hits and two walks in the two games.
Wichita State enters the tournament with a good NCAA at-large resume. It ranked No. 32 in the NCAA RPI as of Monday, tops among American schools. It owns wins over No. 19 Arkansas, No. 26 Oklahoma State, No. 39 Texas and No. 40 Nebraska.
"We've done a great job with our body of work this year," Bredbenner said. "But we don't want to rely on just our RPI. We're hoping we can come in and win a couple games and if we can win the tournament, great."
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
