To kick off their season, the baseball team traveled to Long Beach, California, to play the Long Beach State Dirtbags. The Shockers played a three game series with Long Beach on Feb. 17-20 and went 1-2. 

Game 1:

Starting the game for Wichita was junior pitcher Clark Candiotti. He gave up only one run in the first inning but found himself with bases loaded in the fifth.

Junior pitcher Caden Favors was brought into the game for Candiotti in the fifth. Favors allowed Long Beach’s second run of the game. 

Favors ended the game with four strikeouts as the Shockers held Long Beach to only two runs.

After three innings of no hits, junior Garrett Pennington recorded Wichita State’s first hit of the season with a single in the fourth. 

Junior Seth Stroh gave WSU an opportunity to score in the eighth inning by hitting a double for the team’s second hit of the night. With a walk and junior Brock Rodden up to bat, the Shockers’ chance at scoring slipped away with a foul out.

After only two hits and no runs, WSU fell to the Dirtbags in game one. Giving up two runs and eight hits, Long Beach took the lead 1-0.

Game 2:

Sophomore Peyton Tolle pitched six-plus innings and gave up three runs. He also struck out three batters.  

The Dirtbags scored twice in the second inning, setting the score at 2-0 for the next three innings.

In the fifth, junior David Herring scored the Shockers’ first run of the season with a single.

As the seventh rolled around, Long Beach led 2-1. With runners at first and third, Rodden was up to bat. 

After a triple by Rodden that resulted in two runs, he snuck home to push the Shockers lead to 4-2.

Long Beach tied it up 4-4 in the bottom of the seventh.  

After the Shockers took back the lead at the top of the ninth,  Long Beach pulled together and scored two more runs for a 6-5 win.  

Wichita State accumulated 10 hits during the game. Four players had multi-hit games: Tolle, Rodden, sophomore Mauricio Millan, and junior Kyte McDonald.

Game 3:

Early scoring gave the Shockers the advantage in the final game of the series. They scored 11 runs in the first three innings.

Pennington started the scoring with a two run home run, the first homer of the season. After a score from Rodden in the second, Long Beach matched Wichita’s runs with three in the bottom of the second to tie the game.

The top of the third opened the floodgates for Shocker scoring. Ten of the first 11 batters made it to base.

With his first home run as a Shocker, Millan hit a two-run homer to start the scoring. Taking back the lead 5-3.

In the top of the third, WSU accumulated eight runs to push the lead,11-3. Despite single runs in the fifth, sixth and ninth innings, the Dirtbags were not able to come back, allowing the Shockers to win their first game of the season, 11-6.

On the pitching end, WSU debuted junior Grandt Adler and freshman Nate Snead. Adler pitched the first six innings giving up five runs but striking out five batters.

Snead pitched two scoreless innings then turned it over to Favors to finish out the game. He recorded the final three outs.