On Saturday, the Wichita State softball team played two games at Wilkins Stadium against the Crowder College Lady Riders and the Pittsburg State Gorillas.

In game one, the Shockers got ahead early and came out with a 10-3 victory.

In the first inning, Brittany Fortner hit a line drive up the middle to bring Kelli Spring in, giving the Shockers a lead of 1-0. Paige Luellen scored on a walk by Fortner, right after Paige Mason scored on a walk by Ashley Johnson in the bottom of the second. With bases loaded, Cacy Williams hit a grand slam that gave the Shockers a 7-0 lead going into the top of the third.

Williams brought Luellen and Spring in, adding two more runs to the Shocker lead, and two batters later, Melanie Jaegers sent Fortner home. The Shockers had a 10-0 lead at the start of the fifth inning.

The Lady Riders showed up in the sixth inning, scoring three consecutive runs, but the Shockers held their ground for the win.

Head coach Kristi Bredbenner was pleased with the win, but admitted a lot of work still needs to be done.

“I thought the game was very up and down,” Bredbenner said. “We hit great for the first half of the game, and after we scored 10, we settled. We lost tenacity and focus.”

The Shockers finished the game with 10 runs, 12 hits and 1 error, and the Lady Riders had 3 runs, 7 hits and 1 error.

“We scored a lot, and our offense was on point,” junior catcher Jaegers said. “We really need to work on staying in the game and not losing our fire after we get comfortably ahead.”

The second game against the Gorillas was a goose egg battle up until the seventh inning, when the Shockers were able to manage a run and emerge with a 1-0 win.

The Pitt State offense was powerful, but it wasn’t able to break the Shockers’ defensive front.

After six-and-a-half innings, Molly Baker hit a sacrificed fly to centerfield that brought Jenni Brooks home, giving the Shockers their single-run victory.

“Pitt is a good team,” senior pitcher Sloan Anderson said. “They had a good pitcher and a tough offense. It was a hard game, but we did what we had to do in order to pull out the win.”

Next weekend, the Shockers will welcome the Allen County Red Devils for a game at 10 a.m., followed by a face-off with the Cowley County Tigers at 4 p.m.