Box Score
LAKELAND â€" To be perfectly honest, Julie Wisniewski would have to be considered a fairly light hitter coming into a 3-game weekend series between Tampa and Florida Southern, but that didn’t stop her from doing the heavy lifting on Friday night. The junior shortstop went 3-for-3, walked once, scored two runs and drove in a huge insurance run to lead the Spartans to a 4-3 win over the Moccasins.
Wisniewski began the day with a .219 batting average, but the Spartan leadoff hitter reached base in all four of her plate appearances, three of them coinciding with the three innings in which Tampa scored. She started the game with a sharply hit single to left and eventually scored the first run of the game on a wild pitch.
The Moccasins (25-21, 9-13) came back to tie the game in the bottom of the second after Christine Clark and Elli Howell started the inning with back-to-back singles and Dani Blake bunted them forward an additional base. Heather Raulerson then gave the Mocs their first run with a sacrifice fly. Florida Southern was able to load the bases after that when Peggy Alex was hit by a pitch and Dezirae Parsons walked, but UT pitcher Heather VanLandingham got out of the inning with a fly ball to right.
The Spartans (19-16, 10-9) answered the Florida Southern run with two of their own in the top of the third, and Wisniewski was again one of the culprits. Brittany Datillo’s one-out bunt single gave UT a base runner and Wisniewski followed with a soft looping liner that landed on the infield dirt behind second base. Alex fielded the ball for Florida Southern, and with no play at first, attempted to dive toward the bag in front of her for the force out, but Datillo was able to slide in just before Alex could touch second base with her glove. Susan Jallo then yanked a pitch into the leftfield corner for a 2-run double, and the Spartans were up 3-1.
In the bottom of the third, Florida Southern made it a 3-2 game when Lindsey Powell was hit by a pitch and came home on a triple by Howell. The score remained that way until the top of the seventh when Wisniewski struck again.
Tampa had started the final inning with three consecutive singles by Shannon Kelly, Kari Walsh and Datillo, two of them softly hit like Wisniewski’s ball in the third, but hits nonetheless. The Mocs went to the bullpen at that point, replacing Clark with Morgan Brown. Wisniewski worked Brown for a walk to force in Kelly, and it proved to be a vital insurance run for Tampa.
Now down by two runs, the Moccasins got a leadoff single from Alex in the bottom of the seventh before VanLandingham got the first two outs. The Mocs were able to knock her out of the game when Ashley Hunt walked and Lindsey Powell singled in Alex. An error on the play allowed both Hunt and Powell to take an extra base, giving FSC runners at second and third with two out. With the game on the line, Tampa coach Leslie Kanter moved Walsh from first base to the pitcher’s circle, and Walsh preserved the win by striking out Clark, the Mocs’ hottest hitter over the last two weeks.
The win gave VanLandingham an 11-10 record, as she allowed three runs on five hits with two walks and no strikeouts in 6.2 innings. The save for Walsh was her second.
Clark fell to a 10-10 with the loss, allowing four runs on nine hits, striking out one and walking no one.
The two teams battle again on Saturday in a doubleheader scheduled for 1:00.
