LAKELAND â€" It’s been that type of month for Elli Howell and Angela Williams is that type of player. What exactly does “that†mean? Monday night, it meant Florida Southern pulled out a 3-2 win over Hillsdale in the bottom of the seventh inning, after winning the first game of the doubleheader 9-1 in only five innings.
The Moccasins (21-6) had 10 hits in each game, and in game one, they used them to win by the eight-run rule. Sara Lovestrand and Dani Blake each had three, and Lindsey Powell drove in four runs. Game two, however, proved to be much more interesting and came down to the final play.
Florida Southern fell behind early when the Chargers (5-5) scored two runs in the top of the third inning. An error on a fly ball put Britt Sevey at second base to start the inning, and after a base hit by Devon Trimmer, Sevey scored on a ground out by Dana Gould. That too was nearly a hit, but second baseman Peggy Alex made a diving stop to throw Gould out at first, temporarily saving another run. Trimmer ended up scoring anyway on a wild pitch, and the Mocs were down 2-0.
They got one run back in the bottom of the third when Lovestrand led off with a triple and scored on a ground ball by Alex that Hillsdale shortstop Allison Hetrick kept from going up the middle for a hit. The Mocs then tied the game in the fourth when another groundout by Lovestrand brought in Howell, who had singled leading off the inning.
The Moccasins left two runners on base to end that inning, two more in the fifth, and two again in the sixth, bringing their total to 10 in the game. They’d left the base loaded in the first inning after Lovestrand, Alex and Powell had started the game with three consecutive singles. In the bottom of the seventh though, they got their only base runner home with the ball never leaving the infield.
That runner was Williams, a three-time All-SSC selection who, despite a rough night at the plate, found a way to get Florida Southern a win. Hitless in six at-bats to that point, Williams worked the count full before drawing a walk. Natalie Lang, another All-SSC player in the throes of a difficult night, also found a way with a perfect sacrifice bunt that moved Williams into scoring position for Howell.
With a team-best .425 batting average in March coming into the night, Howell didn’t get a hit in this at-bat, but her ground ball somehow still produced the winning run. The junior first baseman hit one down to third baseman Jordan Kellie, who threw Howell out at first, but Williams advanced to third on the play after watching it go across the diamond. When the Chargers tried to throw back to third, the ball skipped in the dirt, bounced off Kellie’s glove and rolled into short left field. That allowed Williams to come home for the winning run.
It also got another “W†for Christine Clark, who allowed just two hits in the game. The freshman lefthander improved to 6-2 while striking out five and walking two. After Trimmer’s single in the third inning, Clark retired 15 of the final 16 Hillsdale batters, with only one ball making it out of the infield.
Hillsdale also scored first in the opener when Trimmer hit Brittany Minton’s first pitch of the game for an inside-the-park home down the right field line. The second pitch was a single by Gould, but Minton was in control the rest of the way. She finished the first inning with three consecutive strikeouts, and nearly matched Clark by setting down 15 of the final 17 batters she faced. She gave up four hits (one of them an infield hit by Sevey who out-raced a throw by Lovestrand at short), struck out eight and walked no one. The win gives Minton a 7-3 record.
The Mocs gave her plenty of support too. Lovestrand doubled and scored on a passed ball in the bottom of the first to tie the game at one, then Powell doubled in both Blake and Lovestrand to give the Mocs a 3-1 lead after two innings.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Moccasins batted around even after their first two hitters were retired. One of those came on a great catch by Trimmer in centerfield that took a hit away from Lang. The game unraveled though for Hillsdale, when Howell struck out but reached first anyway on a wild pitch. Ashley Hunt singled and Heather Raulerson walked to load the bases, and Blake’s third hit of the game brought in Howell for a 4-1 lead. Lovestrand followed with a two-run single, a base hit by Alex made it 7-1, and Powell ended it with a two-run single.
Florida Southern will take the field again on Tuesday night in Clermont with a doubleheader against Merrimack at 6:00 p.m.
Box scores and statistics temporarily unavailable due to web-site maintenance.
