Illinois State Comes Up Short In National Invitational

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Published on May 23 2017 12:18 pm
Last Updated on May 23 2017 12:18 pm
Written by Millie Lange

After clinching the NISC Regional Title, Illinois State came up short to Lamar and Liberty in the National Invitational Softball Championship final to conclude the 2017 season with the Redbirds’ best record in five years, including an MVC Championship.

“I’m incredibly proud of this team, especially our two seniors this year,” head coach Melinda Fischer said. “They’ve accomplished so much this season. It was not the outcome we wanted today, but this has been a great season that ended with an MVC Championship and playing in this tournament.”

“It all started in with our fall season to our foreign tour, to our early-tournament schedule that led us to a conference championship,” Fischer said. “This NISC experience has taught us how to play in a regional format and we’ve taken this next step. The goal for this program is to be able to play past that. The records and firsts for this team are huge. They figured out how to get it done this year and I’m incredibly proud of this team.”

Sarah Finck, Riley Strandgard, and Allison Spence were named to the NISC All-Tournament team for their performances in the regional and championship rounds.

Illinois State jumped to an early one-run advantage before Lamar took a 2-1 lead that the Redbirds could not over come in the first round of the NISC Tournament at Kamphuis Field on Monday morning. The Redbirds outhit the Cardinals 6-4 in the pitchers’ duel led by a multi-hit effort by Spence and a single RBI by Strandgard. Lamar’s Ashley McDowell had two hits with Brittany Rodriguez coming up with the pair of RBI for the Cardinals.

In game two, Liberty jumped to an early lead in the third inning that the Redbirds could not overcome, falling 3-0 to end the 2017 season. Spence slugged the lone hit for Illinois State in the fourth inning while both Jordan de los Reyes and Annie Heineman threatened on the bags but could not come home.

Illinois State concludes the 2017 season with a 33-24 record – their best mark since 2012. Lamar and Liberty move on with a 33-23 and 42-24 records, respectively. As a team, the 2017 Redbirds rank top-five in program history in eight statistical categories: home runs, walks, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, runs scored, hits, RBIs, and total bases. Individually, de los Reyes, Strandgard and Spence set single-season records for the Redbirds. De los Reyes owns the single season home run, RBIs, and total bases records while Strandgard is the assists leader and Spence leads the program in putouts.

Teutopolis graduates who were members of Illinois State were Anni and Kadi Borries.