ST. PETERSBURG â€" Christine Clark has given the Moccasins a huge lift this year with her pitching, but in Saturday’s doubleheader at Eckerd, the freshman picked them up with her hitting. Clark’s two home runs and five RBI helped Florida Southern to a 10-2 victory after Eckerd pulled off a 6-4 win in the opener.
The day had a promising start as Sara Lovestrand led off the game with her seventh home run of the year and Angela Williams also hit her seventh later in the inning. That gave the Moccasins a 2-0 lead and allowed both players to tie the school record for home runs in a season. They share it with Susan Young (1985), Wanda Graham (1993) and Autumn Lynch (1999). Williams also moved within one of Graham’s career record of 16.
Eckerd came back though with three runs in the bottom of the second and led the rest of the game. It started with an infield single by Kristen Torres, but the Moccasins (28-10, 6-3) helped out with two errors. After the second one, Janielle Sedoris singled up the middle for one run and Alex Sasso did the same to drive in two more.
When Mackenzie Dawson led off the bottom of the third with a home run, Clark entered the game for the Moccasins and restored order with the help of an unassisted double play by Elli Howell at first base. She also got assistance from Heather Raulerson in the fourth inning when the Moccasin catcher threw out Julia Kraus attempting to steal.
Florida Southern scored on an error in the top of the sixth to pull within 4-3, but the Tritons (15-25, 1-8) broke through again in the bottom half by stringing together three straight two-out hits. Sasso and Oimoen each drove in a run with theirs, giving Sasso three RBI in the game and Oimoen four hits, including a pair of doubles.
Those two runs scored by Eckerd in the bottom of the sixth proved crucial, for the Moccasins were able to get on the board in the top of the seventh. A double from Lovestrand, a walk by Lindsey Powell and two-out RBI single by Angela Williams put the tying run on base for Natalie Lang, who already had two hits in the game. Lang nearly got her third, but pitcher Alex Koronkiewicz got a glove on what should have been a run-scoring single, deflected it to Sedoris at short, who got the ball to second baseman Kristen Torres just in time for the force out on Williams.
It was the second time Koronkiewicz saved a potential run-scoring hit with her glove. In the fourth inning, with Williams on second and Lang on first, she again deflected a hard-hit ball over to Sedoris, who was able to throw out Williams at third. She gave up seven hits overall, walked two and struck out one, improving to 6-11.
After suffering their first loss to Eckerd since 2002, the Moccasins re-grouped for their 10-2 win in game two of the doubleheader.
The Mocs pushed across a run in the top of the first on a single and stolen base by Lovestrand, a sacrifice by Peggy Alex and ground out by Powell. The Tritons came right back with two in the bottom of the first, which included another RBI double by Oimoen.
Down 2-1, Florida Southern erupted for seven runs in the top of the second, sending 12 batters to the plate. Clark came up twice and each time drove in two runs. Her first hit came after a leadoff double by Ashley Hunt and cleared the leftfield fence for a two-run homer that put the Mocs ahead 3-2. A two-out error then opened the floodgates and the Mocs scored two more runs on a second error. Howell then doubled in another run and Clark followed a walk to Hunt with a two-run single that made the score 8-2.
Clark may have been finished in the second inning but not in the game. Leading off the top of the fifth inning she hit her second homer of the game to tie another school home run record. It was the tenth time in school history a player hit two home runs in a game, and the second time this season. Williams did it on March 7 at West Georgia.
The Mocs tacked on another run in the sixth inning on an RBI single by Howell, allowing them to win by the eight-run rule for the second time in the series.
Morgan Brown also picked up her second win of the series, pitching a complete game to improve to 11-2. She scattered seven hits and allowed just one earned run, striking out five and walking one.
The earlier loss prevented the Moccasins from gaining ground in the Sunshine State Conference standings, but neither did the Mocs lose any. Florida Tech upset Tampa in the finale of their three-game series, and Saint Leo stunned Barry with a six-run rally in the bottom of the seventh to take the final game of that series.
Florida Southern begins another three-game series on Tuesday night when it hosts Saint Leo in a single game beginning at 7:00 p.m.
