Carbondale, Ill. – Southern Illinois (30-8, 14-3 MVC) took care of business in its series finale with Evansville Sunday afternoon with a 4-1 win. For the second-straight game, Southern trailed after the first inning but once again were able to shut out the Aces for the remainder of each game and complete a pair of comebacks.
Maddia Groff struck out a season-high 15 in 6.1 scoreless innings including ten consecutive strikeouts. The single-game strikeout record at Southern Illinois is 20 from Brianna Jones on April 28, 2008 – also against Evansville in a 16-inning win.
Not making the start, Groff came into the game for Hannah Hockerman after a pair of walks and sacrifice fly brought across a run for Evansville. Groff surrendered a single before going on to strike out the next ten batters she faced. She earned her 21st win of the season allowing just two singles and a walk to go along with her season-high 15 whiffs.
Groff totaled 10.1 innings over the weekend with 23 strikeouts, one walk, four singles, and zero runs as she now sits at 21-2 with a 0.73 ERA.
Katherine Johnson made the start in right field for just the 11th time this season and led the Salukis with a pair of RBIs, going 1-for-2 with a double and sacrifice fly.
Still tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the third, Jackie Lis put the Salukis in front with a solo home run. Lis leads the Dawgs with 11 now on the season as she moves into eighth all-time at SIU in career home runs with 28.
Holding onto a 2-1 lead in the sixth, SIU was able to give Groff a cushion as the Dawgs tallied three hits for two more runs. Addi Baker got the inning going with a leadoff single as she now has tallied at least one hit in five of her last six starts.
Rylinn Groff reached base for the second time with a single in the sixth to keep the line moving as Johnson drove in her second run on a deep fly ball to right in the next at-bat. Sophomore Erin Lee put a single through the right side for an RBI for the second-straight day to put the Salukis up 4-1 headed to the seventh.
Giving up her first hit since the first inning, Groff went on to strike out two more in the final inning before a foul fly out to Sidney Jones ended the game.
Southern will move its attention to Belmont as the Bruins come to Carbondale next weekend for a pivotal MVC series. SIU currently sits in first place at 14-3 in the conference with Belmont just behind the Salukis at 12-4 after a series win over Missouri State this weekend.
