LAKELAND â€" Karlyn Scott can be forgiven if she might have been the only Moccasin who didn’t want Tuesday night’s doubleheader with Warner University to come to an early finish. After going 7-for-7 with five RBI, who could blame her for sticking around a bit longer to see if any more hits came out of her bat? Instead, she’ll have to wait, but Scott’s big night at the plate, along with shutout pitching from Christine Clark and Lauren Wolfe gave Florida Southern 6-0 and 8-0 wins over Warner.
Scott was 3-for-3 with a double, sacrifice fly and two RBI in the opener before going 4-for-4 with another double and three more RBI in the nightcap. Her RBI single in the third inning of game one gave Florida Southern (17-3) its first run, and her RBI single in the fifth inning of game two allowed the Moccasins to win by the 8-run rule. Going back to the final game of the Saint Leo series on Saturday, Scott has 10 hits in her last 11 at-bats to lift her batting average to a league-leading .455.
Those seven hits by Scott were more than the Royals (6-4) had in two games combined. Clark held them to three hits, all of them infield singles, in the first game, and Wolfe held them to three in the second. Clark improved to 10-2 with her fourth shutout of the season, while Wolfe upped her record to 5-1 with her third.
The Mocasins also got four hits and two RBI in the doubleheader from Steph Graziani, and two hits and two walks from Christie Bailey. The two wins give the Moccasins 15 wins in their last 16 games.
A double by Scott in inning one of game one didn’t lead to any runs, but by the time she batted again in the third inning, Graziani was at second after reaching on an error. Scott promptly brought her home with a single up the middle, took second on the throw to the plate, and third on a wild pitch. When Randi Grimes hit a ground ball to first that was mis-handled for an error, Scott was already on her way home for the Mocs’ second run of the inning.
The Mocs led 3-0 after Sam Gale singled in another run in the bottom of the fourth, and they doubled their lead with three runs in the bottom of the sixth. Singles by Devin Mathews and Bailey gave the Mocs their first two base runners of the inning, and Mathews scored on a dropped pop fly to make it a 4-0 game. Graziani drove in Bailey with her first hit of the night, and Scott made it 6-0 with a sacrifice fly.
Warner had only four base runners in the game, including infield singles by Laura Lovell and Hayley Padgett in the fourth, and Danielle Fennimore in the seventh. Clark also issued one walk and had one strikeout. Only once did a Warner base runner get as far as second.
Florida Southern wasted little time in scoring its first runs of game two, pushing two of them across in the first inning. Scott was a part of that inning too with a single, and scored the first run when she beat the throw to the plate on a grounder hit by Clark three batters later. The Mocs scored their second run when the Royals were unable to turn a 5-2-3 double play that would have ended the inning, with Brittany Martin alertly scoring from second on the throw from the catcher to first base.
Scott gave the Mocs a 3-0 lead in the second inning with an RBI double down the right field line, a play where Graziani also scored when the relay to home was thrown to the backstop. A sacrifice fly by Martin made it 5-0 after two innings, and an RBI single by Scott in the third inning made it 6-0.
After a quiet fourth inning, the Mocs loaded the bases in the bottom of the fifth on singles by Dayna Hunn and Bailey, and a hit-by-pitch against Gale. Graziani drove in Hunn with a grounder to second, and Scott ended the game with another single up the middle.
Warner’s most serious scoring threat came when Wolfe hit Lindsey Martin leading off the fourth inning and Fennimore followed with a double to put runners at second and third with none out. Stefani Bonilla made the first out with a fly ball to right, and any thoughts the Royals had of scoring ended when Hunn threw a dart to the plate, forcing Martin to hold at third. Amanda Gardner then hit a fly ball to shallow left that Gale caught and fired in behind the runner at third where Brittany Martin put the tag on for an inning-ending double play.
Wolfe finished the game with three strikeouts and no walks in addition to the three hits allowed. She's had complete game shutouts in three of her last four starts.
Florida Southern returns to Sunshine State Conference play this weekend with a 3-game series against Eckerd College at Barnett Field. The first game is Friday night at 7:00, and the teams will also play a doubleheader on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.
