Kristi Bredbenner didn’t need to check the box score to tell what was happening.

From the dugout, she watched Kinzey Woody press more into each at-bat earlier this season against Missouri — each swing getting bigger, her frustration more visible. The pattern was clear by the third strikeout.

“You could just see that she kept swinging harder and harder and getting more frustrated that nothing was going her way,” Bredbenner said. 

Woody, a freshman from Westphalia, Mo., and a former Missouri recruit, finished 0-for-3 with three strikeouts in a 12-4 run-rule loss. Afterward, Bredbenner made a decision.

There wouldn’t be a long conversation, and there didn’t need to be one. Woody didn’t play again that weekend.

For some players, a moment like that lingers. It becomes a setback, or worse, a turning point in the wrong direction. 

For Woody, it became something else.

“I think that was her ‘aha moment’ moment of ‘I’ve got to stay within myself a little bit,’” Bredbenner said. “‘I don’t need to be bigger, stronger, faster, swing harder than I already can,’ because what she does is really good.”

Woody used the time on the bench to recalibrate everything from her approach to her expectations to the transition from high school to college. When she returned to the lineup the following weekend, she wasn’t trying to do more but simply be herself.

Since then, no player in the American Conference has been better.

As of Tuesday morning, Woody became the first player in league history to sweep the Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year honors in the same season, putting a stamp on her midseason turnaround.

She was also named unanimously to the All-Conference First Team and the All-Freshman team as a third baseman.

It’s a vivid reflection not just of production, but transformation.

“It was a good feeling to wake up and see that,” Woody said. “But that’s just props to my coaches and my teammates for helping me through it all.

“You know, not having the best start to the season, but being able to turn it around — it’s all because of them.”

Her turnaround has mirrored Wichita State’s surge heading into this weekend’s conference tournament.

Joining Woody as First Team All-Conference members are sophomores Ausha Moore, a designated/utility player, and Ryley Nihart, the Shockers’ ace in the circle. 

Kammie Smith was named to the All-Freshman team and All-Conference Second Team, and Junior Trinity Allen made the All Conference Second Team as well.

And the accolades didn’t stop with the players.

Wichita State’s coaching staff — Bredbenner, associate head coach Elizabeth Economon and assistant coach Courtney Oliver-Elkins — were named the league’s Coaching Staff of the Year.

“It’s really just a testament to what we’ve done,” Moore said of the team’s achievements. “Not even just now, but in the offseason. … We knew that we were capable of that. 

“It’s the cherry on top.”

‘Riding the roller coaster’

The Shockers have won 14 straight games against league opponents, swept their last four conference series, rose to No. 44 in the RPI and won a share of the conference regular season title.

At the center of it all is Woody, who has dominated conference pitching. Against league foe, she’s atop the leaderboards in batting average (.476), slugging percentage (1.000), on-base percentage (.587), hits (39), and RBIs (36).

Her surge in power has been just as striking.

Woody’s first four home runs this season formed a rare kind of cycle — a grand slam, a three-run shot, a two-run shot and a solo homer.

It started with a full-count grand slam against Creighton on February 21. She followed with three- and two-run home runs in back-to-back games against UAB on March 13 and 14. The sequence ended with a solo shot against Florida Atlantic on March 20, part of a 3-for-3 night at the plate.

She’s now up to 14 homers and counting on the year.

But the foundation for that success was built long before the awards — and even before the early-season struggles.

It began in the fall, during individual workouts and early adjustments to a new program. It grew through extra reps on days off and the gradual trust built with teammates and coaches. 

“The fall wasn’t really the easiest, and the beginning of the season wasn’t either,” Woody said. “But I really figured out how to turn it around and just really relied on my teammates.

“You have to go down before you can go up. So just riding the roller coaster and … trying to find that up and try to stay there.”

That kind of rally matters at this point in the season.

But now, the focus shifts entirely to raising the American Conference Championship trophy.

The Shockers’ path to a conference tournament title

By virtue of winning a share of the regular season title, the Shockers earned a bye all the way to the tournament semifinals slated for 2:30 p.m. Friday on ESPN+ at Max R. Joyner Family Stadium in Greenville, N.C. 

They enter as the No. 2-seed, having lost the tiebreaker to South Florida, which won two of the three games earlier this year.

Although the end of this regular season was Wichita State’s strongest since 2023, entering the postseason becomes a reset of its own. Bredbenner looks at it that way, too.

“The postseason to me is an all new season,” she said. “The momentum side of it is huge — we’ve swept four series, we’ve got a streak going in conference games — but we struggled against some of the teams that we could line up against.”

One team in particular: East Carolina.

WSU met the Pirates on their home field for the first conference series this year, which became this year’s rallying point. After dropping the series 2-1, the Shockers rattled off wins in 24 of their last 30 games — including a streak of 12 in a row.

And because of how the standings shaped out this season, there is a chance the teams will meet again in the semifinals at the same place the Shockers’ season turned around. 

Still, there’s no time for Wichita State to get caught up in it.

“It doesn’t mean anything to us. It’s just another game,” Moore said about potentially playing ECU again. “We know they got the best of us a couple months ago, but we’re a totally different team.”

“We definitely don’t want to leave it up to anybody,” she added. “We want to decide our own fate and have control of that. To win two games is our biggest driving force this weekend.”

Two wins will deliver the American’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, allowing the Shockers to breathe easier rather than risk an uncertain at-large selection. 

For Woody, and the rest of Wichita State, those two wins could be the definitive final “up” on the roller coaster ride.