Softball Bears Conclude Non-Con Play at No.13 Arkansas

The Prime Nine

• Missouri State (16-13, 7-4 MVC) wraps up the non-conference portion of its regular-season schedule with a single-game matchup at No. 13 Arkansas on Tuesday, April 6. The Bears are 9-9 against non-conference opponents this season after finishing with an 8-8 record through its string of four tournaments to begin the 2021 campaign and picking up a 5-4 win at SLU on March 16 before falling 4-3 to Kansas City last week (March 30).
• MSU suffered its first Missouri Valley Conference series setback after dropping three games at Bradley this past weekend. The Bears had earned a series victory against all three of its Valley foes prior to the trip to Peoria, Ill. after winning seven of their first eight league contests. The 7-1 record was Missouri State’s best start to conference play since the 2006 team rattled off 10 straight wins to begin their league campaign.
• The Bears will be going up against their third opponent to be ranked or receiving votes in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Top-25 poll this season, holding a 3-0 favor against the competition after beating then-No. 23 ranked Iowa State, 3-1 at the Boerner Invitational (March 7) and sweeping a pair of games against Southern Illinois (March 24), who was receiving votes at the time.
• Daphne Plummer (Sr., Lee’s Summit, Mo.) and Bailey Greenlee (Jr., Snohomish, Wash.) each recorded their first career home runs in the game against Kansas City on March 30. Both memorable hits were solo shots and came on opposite ends of the contest with Plummer’s leadoff home run in the bottom of the first starting things off on the right foot for MSU while Greenlee’s came in the bottom of the seventh in the Bears’ 8-3 loss to the ‘Roos. Plummer paces the Bears lineup with a .337 average and a team-high 29 hits. Greenlee has recorded a double, a triple and a home run in 2021 while going a perfect 4-4 on stolen base attempts.
• Making her first starts of the 2021 season after recovering from an offseason injury, Payton Minnis (So., Blue Springs, Mo.) hit .385 (5-13) in her four games last week including multi-hit outings against Kansas City on Tuesday and in game two of the Bradley series. She added a game-tying RBI single against the Braves on Friday. Minnis is a career .322 hitter and has started in 53 games – all at second base – in her three years at MSU.
• Kelly Metter (Sr., Columbia, Ill.) recorded her third multi-RBI game of the season after her fourth-inning single plated two runs in the series opener against Bradley on Friday. Earlier this year, she tallied the third four-RBI game of her career after driving in four runs against TAMU-CC on March 5.
• The MSU pitching staff ranks third in the MVC with a team ERA of 1.78. The trio of Steffany Dickerson (Sr., Oklahoma City, Okla.), Madison Hunsaker (Sr., Peculiar, Mo.) and Gracie Johnston (So., Augusta, Kan.) stand among the top-11 Valley pitchers in ERA with Hunsaker (1.75) at fourth, Johnston (2.56) at ninth and Dickerson (2.82) at 11th. All three hurlers have contributed to MSU’s five shutouts of 2021 which includes a scoreless outing from Dickerson against SIU, the league’s top run-producing team, on March 24.
• At the plate, Hunsaker leads the team with 16 RBI and five doubles. She has smacked two home runs, both of which have come in big games as her first dinger of 2021 punctuated MSU’s top-25 win against the Cyclones (March 7) and she hit a two-run go-ahead home run to seal the victory versus UNI on March 20.
• Darian Frost (Sr., Lee’s Summitt, Mo.) owns a .403 on-base percentage with 15 hits and has drawn 12 walks. Her four doubles on the season have all come against Valley opponents.

Head Coach Holly Hesse

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• Bears head coach Holly Hesse is in her 33rd season leading the Bears’ program as the second-winningest coach in Missouri Valley Conference history with a career record of 834-813-2 (.506). She began the year ranked 30th among all active NCAA Division I coaches in career victories.
• Coach Hesse is 19-21 vs. Arkansas in her career.
• Hesse joined the elite 800-win club on March 24, 2019 with the Bears’ 3-2 come-from-behind win over Northern Iowa at Killian Stadium to make her the 30th active Division I coach at the time with 800 wins at the time. Hesse picked up her 750th win on Feb. 9, 2018 with a 4-0 win over Mississippi Valley State at the Bulldog Kickoff Classic in Starkville, Miss., after earning her 700th victory with a 4-0 win at Illinois State on April 18, 2015, completing a doubleheader sweep in Normal, Ill.
• She is the winningest coach in Missouri State history, and her tenure includes two regular-season MVC titles, five MVC tournament crowns and five NCAA Tournament appearances.
• The most notable program wins under Hesse have come against Michigan (1996), Alabama (2006) and Oklahoma (1995, 1998, 1999, 2008) all of which have gone on to win NCAA DI National Championships. In 2019, Hesse led the Bears to a 4-3 win at No. 16 Auburn.
• Hesse has coached 36 different first-team all-conference players which have received 51 first-team all-conference honors.  Twenty-three of Hesse’s players have gone on to earn NFCA All-Midwest Region honors, including Steffany Dickerson in 2019.
• Recent statewide honors for Hesse include induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 and the Missouri State University Staff Excellence in Public Affairs Award, presented to her in 2016 by the MSU Board of Governors for distinctive work and accomplishments in support of Missouri State’s public affairs mission.

Series History

• Arkansas leads the all-time series, 21-19, including a 12-6 advantage when playing in Fayetteville.  Missouri State has won three of the last five road meetings against the Razorbacks.
• The last time the two teams faced each other was on April 3, 2019 at Killian Stadium where Arkansas came out on top of a pitcher’s duel and took the single-game matchup, 2-1.  The Razorbacks capitalized on a couple of MSU errors in a two-run second inning, spoiling an impressive start from Steffany Dickerson who tossed five innings and allowed just three hits.  An RBI groundout from Darby Joerling provided the MSU run in the fifth while Kyana Mason was 3-3 at the plate.

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