This season the Kristi Bredbenner-led Shockers earned an at-large bid to the four-team regional in Fayetteville, Ark. Wichita State advanced in double-elimination play, but ended its season with a 32-23 record after 5-0 and 6-4 losses to the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Wichita State’s softball team took another unprecedented step in 2018 under seventh-year head coach Kristi Bredbenner, advancing to the NCAA regional championship round for the first time before the Arkansas Razorbacks ended the Shockers’ run.
Two years after posting the first NCAA tournament victory in program history, the Shockers returned to the postseason with an at-large bid to the four-team regional in Fayetteville, Ark. Wichita State advanced in double-elimination play with two victories over the Oklahoma State Cowgirls, but ended its season with a 32-23 record after 5-0 and 6-4 losses to Arkansas.
Led by Bredbenner, who previously coached at Emporia State where she took the Hornets to six straight postseason appearances, and by Mackenzie Wright, who won American Athletic Conference Player of the Year accolades, the Shockers went unbeaten in four games against Oklahoma State during the season after posting just eight victories in 87 previous meetings against the Cowgirls.
“At the end of the day, we came up a little short,” Bredbenner told reporters after the Shockers’ season-ending loss to Arkansas on May 20. “We’ve got to redefine ourselves,” she added. “Our kids have to recognize that and come in hungry versus satisfied.”
Wright, one of three seniors on Wichita State’s roster, was named player of the year in the Shockers’ first season in the AAC. The Midwest City, Okla., native became the third Shocker in program history to be a four-time all-conference selection after Britnee Barnett ’09 and Katie McGeeney ’09 earned the honor from 2005-08.
Wright, one of three Shockers to start all 55 games, led the team with a .360 batting average and 63 hits. Her leadership, along with that of fellow seniors Paige Luellen and Morgan Palmer, were key components of Wichita State’s fifth consecutive 30-victory season.
“The chemistry that I think we’ve all created this year is something that I think looking forward is something we need to strive to create,” freshman pitcher Caitlin Bingham says. “Our seniors did an excellent job of keeping us all together, especially on the field.”
Wichita State’s challenging non-conference schedule included 15 games against opponents who were either nationally ranked or receiving votes at the time. In addition to the Shockers’ victories over Oklahoma State, they edged Arkansas 1-0 in early March at Wilkins Softball Complex, and held a 6-0 lead against defending College World Series champion Oklahoma before the Sooners rallied to take a game in mid-April.
In conference play, WSU went 12-9 to tie for third with Central Florida behind regular-season champion South Florida and Houston. Despite a quarterfinal loss to Tulsa in the AAC tournament, the Shockers received their second at-large NCAA bid in four tournament appearances. Wright earned the all-conference selection at third base and was joined on the first team by junior shortstop Laurie Derrico, who hit 11 of the Shockers’ team-record 59 home runs, and designated player/pitcher Bailey Lange, who won 20 games with a 2.90 ERA and added seven home runs and 22 RBI while sharing the team lead in stolen bases (9) with Wright.
Luellen, a fifth-year senior from Tulsa, Okla., and Wellington, Kan., sophomore Ryleigh Buck were named to the AAC’s second team. Luellen, who batted .326 with six home runs and 32 RBI, finished her career as Wichita State’s leader in RBI with 153. Palmer, the Shockers’ lone community college transfer from Seminole State (Okla.), started 38 games in her senior season.
“They figured out what their goals were and how they were going to achieve those,” Bredbenner says of her Shocker senior trio. “One of those things was getting the entire team – all 19 players – to play hard every single day and give it everything they have because the one thing that the seniors reminded the girls of is that four years go by super fast. You don’t want to look back after those years and think that you didn’t do everything you could to be successful.”
This season, 12 of WSU’s 19 players experienced postseason play for the first time. Looking ahead, WSU returns most of its lineup and all of its pitching staff.
