The RoundHouse | 4/1/2022 10:20:00 PM
By
Paul Suellentrop
There was no question last season that
Madison Perrigan would start every game at catcher for Wichita State.
Jessica Garcia, a freshman, spent the 2021 season learning from Perrigan, the program's career home run leader.
While Perrigan went about starting for a fifth season, Garcia started three games at third base and two in right field. She hit three home runs, including a pinch-hit homer in a win over No. 6 Oklahoma State.
Mostly, she took notes from one of Wichita State's best.
"I watched everything (Perrigan) did and always asked her the small things I could work on to improve my game," Garcia said. "I really just focused on perfecting my tools that I already had. She really taught me a lot."
The best lesson? Keep grinding, Perrigan told her, even went things get tough. On Friday, the Shockers needed Garcia, starting at catcher, to grind through a challenging game. She delivered Wichita State's final three runs in a 10-8 win over Tulsa on Friday at Wilkins Stadium to open American Athletic Conference play.
"She's had some really good adjustments in batting practice the last two weeks and is really starting to hit the ball hard," Wichita State coach
Kristi Bredbenner said. "She's really thinking through things and understanding some of the things she's struggled with."
For Garcia, a sophomore from Mill Valley High School, that means working on her hitting, while not getting too worried about working on hitting. More deep breaths. More relaxing and less stressing.
"I'm very analytical about my swing, and part of the me that past two weeks was like 'just let that go,'" she said. "I hit really well when I came into this program, and I think the pressure of being a Division I player got to me. I threw all that out the window and said, 'Just be the player that you are meant to be.'"
Garcia homered in the fifth inning to give the Shockers (18-10, 1-0 American) an 8-7 lead and complete a rally from three runs down. In the sixth, her single drove in two runs for a 10-7 lead. The Shockers needed those runs on a night when pitching and defense handed Tulsa (12-20-1, 0-1) runs. Shocker pitchers combined to walk five and two errors led to four Hurricane runs in the fourth inning. In the seventh, Garcia allowed a run to score when she neglected to tag a runner at home on a fielder's choice.
The Shockers turned the game with their power.
Lauren Mills' second home run of the game tied it 7-all and brought Garcia to the plate.
"I got down in the count, but my first two at-bats she was giving me that screwball inside," Garcia said. "I knew she was going to come back to it. She left it too much over the plate – just a little."
Mills drove in four runs with her two homers.
Addison Barnard homered in the third inning to give the Shockers a 4-3 lead.
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
