EAST PEORIA, Ill.—The top-seeded UIndy softball team opened the 2023 GLVC Championship Tournament with a 2-0 victory over the eighth-seeded Drury Panthers Thursday. On a near-perfect spring afternoon, the Greyhounds sprinkled in a pair of runs to support ace Kenzee Smith during her complete-game shutout.
 
Along the way, senior outfielder Maddy Stout set an impressive (if not painful) school record with her 18th hit-by-pitch of the season.
 
UIndy moves on to face four-seed Maryville tomorrow in a winners' bracket matchup at 4 p.m. ET. The eight-team, double-elimination tournament is being held Thursday through Sunday at the EastSide Centre in East Peoria, Ill.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Offense was at a premium Thursday, as a pair of All-GLVC First Team pitchers – Smith and DU's Kristina Bettis – went head-to-head. But the Greyhounds struck first with some timely pop in the bottom of third. Stout coaxed her record-breaking HBP to lead off the frame and came around to score on Jocelyn Calvin's double to the left-center gap.
 

?? | The Hounds strike first!

Maddy Stout sets the school record for HBPs in a season (1??8????) and scores all the way from first on Jocelyn Calvin's gapper! pic.twitter.com/pTZvxLPO1m

— UIndy Athletics (@UIndyAthletics) May 4, 2023

 
That proved sufficient for Smith, as the freshly-crown GLVC Pitcher of the Year continued to miss bats in the postseason opener. The Indy native went the distance, notching her 11th shutout of the year to move to 29-3. She has not allowed a run in her last 28 2/3 consecutive innings of  work.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
-UIndy added an insurance run in the sixth when Megan Nichols scored from first base on an Emily O'Connor single and a Panther error.
-Nichols finished the day as the only Hound with more than one hit, going 2-for-3 to bump her team-high batting average back over .400.
-Stout's single-season HBP record of 18 topped the former mark shared by two of her former teammates; Taylor Danielson and Brooke Montgomery both reached 17 HBPs in 2021.
-Thursday's result marked the second time in as many seasons that Smith bested Bettis in the GLVC Tournament. Last year, Smith got the win in a 1-0 extra-inning victory in the semifinals.