MIAMI SHORES â€" Brittany Martin may have changed Friday night’s game at Barry with one swing of the bat. She definitely changed it with her second. Martin hit a solo home run in the second inning, added a 3-run shot in the third, and finished with three hits and five RBI to lead Florida Southern to an 8-5 win over Barry.
Barry pitcher Brianna Smith, who entered the game with a 0.87 ERA, struck out all three Moccasins in the first inning, but Martin turned on a 2-0 pitch leading off the top of the second and dropped it over the leftfield fence for a 1-0 Florida Southern lead. In her next at-bat, the junior first baseman followed an RBI single by Erin Foley with a three-run blast to center that put the Mocs (15-11, 6-4) up 5-0. She added an RBI single in the fourth before the Buccaneers (23-7, 9-1) walked her on four pitches in the sixth.
Martin had just three of the Moccasins’ 10 hits, but as damaging as they were, it was a hit batter in the third and three errors in the fourth that really led to Barry’s problems. Smith hit Dani Blake in the foot leading off the top of the third before Karlyn Scott reached on an infield single. Foley then lined a pitch off Smith’s glove that went for another infield hit and scored Blake, and Martin’s 3-run homer followed.
It marked the second week in a row Martin opened a Sunshine State Conference series with two home runs in a game. She also went deep twice in a 13-1 win at Eckerd on March 18. She joined Susan Young, who did it in 1985, as the only Moccasins to have two multi-home run games in one season.
One inning later, Smith (11-5) got Blake on a ground out to start the inning, but an error allowed Steph Graziani to reach and Scott walked. A wild pickoff throw allowed both runners to advance further, and Martin’s single to left gave the Mocs another run. Smith then had a chance to get out of the inning, but a ground ball hit by Randi Grimes, who already had two hits in the game, went for the Bucs’ third error of the inning, and brought in both Scott and Martin for an 8-1 lead.
When Khaliah Brown and Heather Raulerson started the fifth inning with back-to-back singles, the Moccasins had a chance to win by the 8-run rule, but Smith came back for three straight outs to keep the game alive for Barry.
All of Barry’s scoring came on home runs by Alyssa Goldsmith and Brooke Asher. Goldsmith hit a solo shot in the bottom of the third, and Asher delivered a grand slam with two out in the bottom of the seventh.
Christine Clark went the distance for Florida Southern to improve to 12-5. Though she gave up 10 hits and five runs, only one of the runs was earned after a 2-out error kept the seventh inning going for the Bucs. Clark struck out six and walked one, and four of the 10 hits against her were infield singles.
Clark also got help from her defense on two other occasions. Brown threw out a runner at the plate in the bottom of the fourth inning, and Martin was able to keep a foot on the bag while spearing a throw on the outfield side of first that just nipped Amber Durkin in the bottom of the sixth.
Florida Southern and Barry will meet again on Saturday in a doubleheader beginning at 1:00 p.m.
