During game one of Wednesday’s series against Creighton, the Cyclones faced junior pitcher Tara Oltman, the reigning two-time Missouri Valley Conference Pitcher of the Year.

Apparently, no one told junior outfielder Kelsey Kidwell.

The Cyclones had a hard time getting much of anything going offensively against the 26 game winner, with the exception being Kidwell, who collected a pair of hits against the right hander.

In her four at-bats during Wednesday’s games before the second game got rained out in the bottom of the fourth, Kidwell was 3-for-4 with three stolen bases and two runs scored. For Kidwell, the three hits broke a 2-for-13 slump over her past five games.

“I thought it was good to come back,” Kidwell said. “I’d been struggling and we’ve been moving me around the lineup so it was finally nice to go out and get a few good solid hits.”

For most of the season, Kidwell had been batting leadoff for the Cyclones. Recently, she had dropped as low as ninth in the batting order.

Despite being shuffled around the lineup, Kidwell said she has not let it bother her.

“I just play where [coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler] puts me,” Kidwell said. “It’s not so much difficult where I’m at, it’s facing different pitchers and getting the good hits to get myself back at the top of the lineup.”

The second game of the doubleheader marked Kidwell’s first game batting leadoff since April 11 against Baylor. In her return to the leadoff spot, Kidwell was able to go 1-2 with a run scored. Gemeinhardt-Cesler believes that numbers like this are normal for the Solon native.

“I definitely expect [success] from her,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. “She hit leadoff for us last year, she hit leadoff for us for quite a long time this season, so I was happy to see her come back and have a good day.”

Aside from Kidwell, the rest of the team struggled to get much going against Oltman. However, during the rain-shortened game two, the return of Kidwell into the leadoff spot might have been the reason for a stronger offensive attack that saw two runs and five hits in three and two-thirds innings of play.

Kidwell hopes that she can help parlay some of her success to the rest of the team.

“I’ve been struggling in the last few games and everyone else has been up,” Kidwell said. “So when I can be successful, you can only hope that the rest of your teammates can be as well. We need to put that together, the few of us that have been struggling now can hit and the people who have been hitting just need to continue that.”