Andrea Kirchberg tied her own school-record of 15 strikeouts yesterday against UW-Green Bay, but she still was not satisfied.
“I felt I should have done a little bit better, had a couple more,” said Kirchberg of her outing. “Fifteen isn’t too bad I guess.”
Kirchberg went the full seven innings and improved her record to 18-13 on the year in the 6-0 Badger victory.
The first inning showed no signs of the record-tying performance to come. Two Phoenix batters reached base to start the game. Scrappy leadoff hitter Connie Koceja sharply grounded the third pitch of the game to the left of shortstop Kristin Zacher for a single into centerfield.
An ill-advised attempt to get Koceja out at second on a bunt by the second batter Jenny Pingel put Kirchberg in a hole. But the pitcher responded to the challenge in a big way.
The next batter popped out to catcher Boo Gillette. Then Kirchberg followed with her first two strikeouts of the game to end the inning and get out of the jam.
A Phoenix runner did not reach base again until the seventh inning.
“She took the situation into her own hands, which she often does,” head coach Karen Gallagher said.
With one out, cleanup hitter Michelle Kaminski hit a sharp single up the middle to break Kirchberg’s streak of 19 straight batters retired. The two singles were the only balls to reach the outfield grass in the game. Nothing else the Phoenix hit left the infield dirt.
Kirchberg retired four batters on weak infield pop-ups and got two batters out on soft groundballs in addition to her 15 strikeouts.
At two times in the game, Kirchberg put together long streaks of strikeouts. She got five in a row in the first and second innings. She also struck out the side in the fourth and fifth innings and got the first batter of the sixth swinging to give her seven in a row. Only one batter of the 24 Kirchberg faced took her to a full count, and then all the junior Badger ace did was strike her out swinging.
But Kirchberg was quick to give her teammates much of the credit for the victory. The Badger offense scored four quick runs in the first inning and then added two more in the second to give her a comfortable lead.
“As a team we played so well,” Kirchberg said. “It’s easier to look at it as dominating because we as a whole played so well.”
Yesterday’s game was the third time Kirchberg stuck out 15 batters in one game. The first came early last season against Utah State. The second time was earlier this year on March 15 against Long Island at the Capital Classic tournament in Sacramento.
Ashley Fauser was the first Badger to achieve the feat. She did it to Kirchberg’s latest victim, UW-Green Bay.
Even with the big outing, Kirchberg said winning is all that really matters.
“It doesn’t matter how well I throw,” Kirchberg said. “If I throw 18 strikeouts in a game, beat my record and then we lose 1-0 on a homerun or on errors, [my performance] doesn’t matter. I don’t really care about my stats. I want us to win.”
