Kira Baker Earns National and Conference Pitcher of the Week Awards

BALDWIN CITY, Kan. – For the fourth time this season, Baker University pitcher Kira Baker earned both NAIA and Heart of America Conference Pitcher of the Week honors after throwing 23 innings of scoreless ball last week.

Baker went 3-0 in the circle and pitched 23 innings in the final week of the 2023 regular season, highlighted by a 15-strikeout performance in a 1-0 win over William Penn on April 25. She racked up 41 strikeouts over the course of her four shutout outings, including coming in for two innings of relief in game one against MidAmerica Nazarene on Friday to earn her second save of the spring.

The Eudora, Kan. native started the second game of the MNU doubleheader and allowed just one hit while tallying 10 strikeouts in another 1-0 win for BU. She capped her week by posting a second consecutive one-hitter in Saturday's regular-season finale at Evangel where she registered double-digit strikeouts for the 15th time this year after whiffing 11 batters in the 5-0 victory.

In 2023, Baker has amassed nearly 250 strikeouts (243) in 126.2 innings pitched to lead a Wildcats team that was Heart Co-Regular Season Champions after finishing the conference season with a 21-5 record. Carrying an 18-1 record, Baker has thrown 15 complete games and 12 shutouts with no-hitters in five of those contests, including two perfect games.

With the program's second conference regular season title in hand, the Wildcats enter as the No. 2 seed in the Heart Softball Conference Tournament, which will be hosted by Baker on May 4-7 at Cavaness Field in Baldwin City, Kan. The Wildcats will face No. 7 MidAmerica Nazarene at 2:30 p.m. on May 4.

#BakerBuildsChampions