LAKELAND â€" Less than 24 hours after pitching a perfect game, could Christine Clark really do it again? Not quite, but she sure came close. Instead, Brittany Martin took care of the perfect part, going 5-for-5 in the doubleheader with three extra base hits and five RBI to help lead Florida Southern to 4-0 and 6-5 wins over Florida Tech.
Thursday night, in the opening game of the series, Clark pitched Florida Southern’s first 7-inning perfect game in 13 years, and she nearly did it again Friday. The junior from Naples took one into the fifth inning before Kara Dickinson singled sharply into centerfield to give Florida Tech its first base runner. Brianna Barth later singled leading off the top of the seventh but was promptly erased on a 6-4-3 double play before Lauren Cole grounded out to end the game. It meant Clark faced just one batter over the minimum in tossing her sixth shutout of the season, and her fourth in Sunshine State Conference play.
As if that weren’t enough, Clark also drove in the first run of the game and later walked as part of a 3-run sixth that put it out of reach. She then won game two of the doubleheader by pitching 4.1 innings of relief, and allowed just one unearned run on three hits, striking out four along the way. She pitched a total of 18.1 innings in the 3-game series and gave up just five base runners. Her three wins over Florida Tech improved her record to 20-12 for the season.
On Friday, Martin was just as impressive. In the Mocs’ 4-0 win in the opener, the junior first baseman went 3-for-3 with a double and two runs scored. She followed that by going 2-for-2 with a double, a home run, a sacrifice fly and five RBI in the 6-5 win in game two. It was Martin’s 3-run homer in the bottom of the fifth inning that gave Florida Southern (23-20, 11-10) the lead after Florida Tech (23-25, 8-16) had led 4-1 earlier in the game.
Martin had Florida Southern’s first hit in game one when she led off the bottom of the second inning with a double and scored two batters later when Clark singled. The score remained 1-0 until the bottom of the sixth when the Mocs loaded the bases on a single by Martin, a double by Randi Grimes and a walk by Clark. Peggy Alex then made the score 2-0 with an RBI single to center, and Grimes scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0. Dani Blake singled in another run for the final margin.
Grimes, Alex and Blake all went 2-for-3 in the game in addition to Martin’s 3-for-3 performance. Overall, the Moccasins had 10 hits off Brianna Barth, who struck out three and walked one, but fell to 13-16. The Panthers have been shut out in 10 of her 16 losses, and eight of them have either been 1-0 or 2-0. She also suffered a 3-0 loss in 10 innings.
Florida Tech turned to Freddy Kraus (9-8) in game two, and Martin got to her too, giving Florida Southern a 1-0 lead with an RBI double in the bottom of the first; but the Panthers scored two in the top of the second and two in the top of the third to go on top, 4-1.
Brooke Fisher helped the Panthers score the second-inning runs when she tripled into the gap in right center for one of them, and scored the other on a base hit by Sarah Oram. The Panthers then got back-to-back doubles from Sasha Stepaniuk and Kara Dickinson to start the third, making the score 3-1, and an RBI single by Emily Densem gave them another run.
Clark entered the game shortly after that and struck out Fisher with two on base to end the third inning, and kept the Panthers off the board in both the fourth and fifth innings. That gave Florida Southern a chance to re-group, and the Mocs did so primarily behind Martin and Karlyn Scott.
In the bottom of the third, Scott singled in Blake, who had reached on a leadoff walk, and scored on a deep fly ball to left by Martin. That got the Moccasins within one run, and they got the rest in the bottom of the fifth when Martin cleared the fence in left center with her sixth home run of the season. It followed a pair of singles by Steph Graziani and Scott, and gave Martin her second 5-RBI game of the season.
Florida Tech got one more run of its own in the top of the sixth when Fisher led off with a double and scored on Stepaniuk’s second hit of the game with an error sandwiched in between. Clark left runners at first and second though, and retired the side in order with a pair of strikeouts in the seventh for her 20th win of the season.
Dickinson ended up with three hits in the game for Florida Tech and four in the doubleheader, and Barth had one of the more unusual statistics of the season. Playing game two in leftfield for the Panthers, she recorded 11 of their 18 putouts, including a couple of difficult plays that may have saved hits.
Florida Southern will end the regular season next week with a 3-game series against Nova Southeastern at Barnett Field. With graduation scheduled for Saturday, the Moccasins and Sharks will play a single game Thursday night at 7:00, and a doubleheader on Friday at 1:00.
