SHAWNEE – Oklahoma Baptist, owners of a 30-6 overall mark and 16-2, first-place Great American Conference record, venture to Alva on April 2-3 for a conference series with Northwestern Oklahoma State.
The Bison, ranked No. 15 in the latest NFCA D2 poll, will play a single game on Thursday at 6 p.m. before a Friday twin bill beginning at noon. NWOSU is 10-26 overall and 3-15 in the league.
Since joining the D2 ranks in 2016, OBU won never lost a series against Northwestern and has a 20-game winning streak dating back to Feb. 25, 2019. Below are notes on the teams.
For the Bison:
Greenlee Wells was named to the NFCA D2 Players of the Year Watchlist. She's the fourth OBU player to make the list.
The senior shortstop has 18 homers. Those lead the nation and are tied for the most in OBU single-season history (
Ally Ryan: 18 in 2024).
Both Wells (18) and Ryan (11) rank top-ten in the home run category in D2.
Some historical marks: Ryan's 125 RBI rank seventh all-time while her 38 homers are slotted second. For Wells, her 55 runs batted in this spring are tied for second-most in single-season history, and only three away from Annie Combs' mark of 58 in 2014.
OBU's power hitting has been outstanding this season. They have homers in 28 of 36 games and rank second nationally with 55 bombs. Plus, the team's .566 slugging mark is fifth.
Also of significance, the Bison lead the GAC and rank 26th nationally with 2.33 stolen bags per game. Sophomore
Kaley Cook heads that front with 38 steals. Those rank top-three in D2. Cook has 80 stolen bases in her career, third-most in OBU history.
Among other key figures, OBU is 21st in the nation in scoring (7.02), 13th in on-base percentage (.435) and 13th in winning percentage (.833).
Individually on the pitching front,
Jaycee Shaffer's 17 wins are No. 4 in D2 and her 118 strikeouts are within the top-20. Freshman
Jaycee Kelln has 11 wins of her own, most among all freshmen in the GAC.
For the Lady Rangers:
Northwestern has lost seven of its last eight games after being swept in a two-game, non-conference series at Fort Hays State.
The Lady Rangers' best statistical mark in the D2 database is fielding percentage. They have a .965 fielding mark which ranks 71st out of 265 D2 schools.
After that, NWOSU has three, top-100 marks: 92nd in hit batters (12), 91st in sacrifice bunts (19) and 82nd in walks (101).
Offensively, Northwestern is last in the GAC and 264th in D2 with a .209 batting average. They are also 12th in the conference with 190 hits and last in slugging (.288).
In the circle, NWOSU's ERA of 4.22 is eighth in the conference.
Kaitlyn Corn, a senior, leads the Lady Rangers offense. She has a team-high .277 batting average, 10 doubles and five homers. Corn also leads the team with 11 RBI.
After her, Jamie Molina has 10 RBI, five doubles, two triples and a homer.
As for pitching, Chloe Brown's 2.41 earned run average is best for Northwestern. She has made 11 appearances and has a 5-3 record with 24 strikeouts to 20 walks. Brown also has five complete games to her credit.
Katy Jones leads in strikeouts with 31 over 69.2 innings pitched and has made the most appearances (14) with a half-dozen complete games.
