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VALDOSTA, GA â€" Over the years at Florida Southern, the long ball hasn’t normally been a big part of the Moccasins’ game. Saturday afternoon, in the second round of the NCAA South Region Tournament, it was THE game and Elli Howell had THE game of her life. The junior first baseman hit a pair of 3-run homers in back-to-back innings to lift Florida Southern to an 8-6 win over Tampa, sending the Mocs to another game on Saturday night against Nova Southeastern.
Howell became the first player in team history to hit two home runs in a postseason game. Her six RBI were another Florida Southern postseason record and the Moccasins (43-14) needed every one of them. Her first shot came in the fourth inning and put the Mocs ahead 4-0, and her second one, hit to nearly the same spot, put them up 8-4 after UT had started a comeback.
Florida Southern had a chance to take control in the top of the first inning when Sara Lovestrand hit the first pitch of the game for a double. Peggy Alex then hit a fly ball deep to left field that nearly left the park but Jessica Keefe caught it on the warning track and kept Lovestrand at second. When Lindsey Powell hit another fly ball to left, Lovestrand was caught too far off the bag and the Spartans turned it into a double play.
After three scoreless innings, both teams put up big numbers in the fourth as Florida Southern scored five runs in the top half and Tampa came back with four in the bottom half. Each team had five hits in the inning after they’d combined for just two hits to that point in the game.
The Moccasins got going when Alex singled up the middle to start the inning. Powell put down a bunt to move her into scoring position but the Spartans tried to get Alex at second instead. The throw was wide of the bag, allowing Alex to take third and Powell to move into second. Angela Williams followed with an RBI double and the Mocs were up 1-0. Two batters later, Howell blasted one over the fence in left field for the first of her 3-run homers.
The Mocs weren’t finished either. Heather Raulerson kept the inning going with a 2-out infield single and Dani Blake followed with a walk. Sara Lovestrand then doubled in pinch-runner Brandy Pikus to make the score 5-0. That brought Alex to the plate for the second time in the inning and she nearly picked up her second hit, but a diving stop by third baseman Susan Jallo resulted in the final out.
Trailing by five runs, Tampa jumped right back in the game when four of its first five batters in the bottom of the inning came up with hits. A single by Rachel Browning and a double by Keefe plated runs and got the Spartans within 5-2, and a 2-out single by Jallo drove in two runs and made it 5-4.
That hit by Jallo also knocked Moccasin starter Christine Clark out of the game. The freshman had been brilliant through the first three innings, allowing no hits and only one base runner. Brittany Minton relieved her with two out in the fourth and got Ashley Arcuri on a fly ball to center that ended the inning and kept it a 5-4 game.
Neither team was finished scoring as they combined for five more runs in the fifth inning. That was when Howell hit her second home run of the game, another 3-run shot to left that put the Mocs ahead 8-4.
That home run proved to be critical too. In the bottom of the fifth, Tampa loaded the bases on singles by Michele Horan and Samantha Becker and a 2-out error. Keefe then dropped a single into short right center just out of the reach of Alex, bringing in two runs and getting the Spartans within 8-6.
Minton got the game under control after that. Pinch-hitter Cassie Barnes hit the ball hard but lined out to Blake in center field for the final out of the fifth inning, before Minton set down the Spartans in order in both the sixth and seventh. The senior earned the win to improve her record to 17-9. She gave up no earned runs in 3.1 innings.
VanLandingham took the loss, falling to 8-4. She allowed eight runs (five earned) on nine hits in 5.0 innings. Deanna Henriott pitched the final two innings for Tampa, which ended the season with a 27-15 record.
