Box Score
LAKELAND â€" Steph Graziani set the table Thursday night, Brittany Martin provided the power, and Dayna Hunn provided something a little bit extra when the Moccasins needed it. Christine Clark took it from there. Graziani’s two hits came in the two innings Florida Southern scored, Martin followed one of them with a home run, Hunn drove in a late insurance run, and Clark tossed a 2-hit shutout to beat 14th-ranked Rollins 3-0.
The Moccasins (35-15, 12-9 Sunshine State Conference) kept their hopes alive for a bid to the NCAA South Region Tournament with their first win over a nationally ranked opponent since beating Rollins at home in 2010. Right now, however, they’re more concerned with the regional rankings that have them sitting two spots behind where they need to be in order to qualify for NCAA postseason play. They’ll get two more shots to improve their standing on Friday when they play Rollins (37-8, 18-4) again in a doubleheader that will end the regular season.
To even get those shots, the Mocs needed everything they could get from a group of players who all came through at just the right times, and another brilliant performance from Clark, who pitched her 11th shutout of the season and moved to 25-8 by limiting the top hitting team in the SSC to only two hits.
Clark struck out 12 and walked no one, and needed only 83 pitches to do it. The Tars got a double from Lawna Hunter in the first inning and a single from Veronica Alred in the fifth, but nothing else. It was Clark’s fifth double-digit strikeout game of the season, with all of them coming in conference play, and four of them coming without a walk.
Rollins pitcher Hope Bitzer, who is now 20-4, was equally effective for most of the night, and gave up just five hits, walked two and struck out four. She too threw 83 pitches, resulting in a rapidly played, 1 hour and 16 minute game.
The Moccasins jumped on Bitzer early though, when Graziani doubled and Martin hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the first inning. It was Martin’s eighth home run of the season, tying her with Angela Williams for second on the Mocs’ all-time single season list. Williams hit eight in 2009 on her way to tying the school’s career home run record of 16.
Devin Mathews doubled in the second inning for Florida Southern, but the Mocs did not have another base runner until Graziani reached on an infield single with one out in the bottom of the sixth. That snapped a string of 12 consecutive outs by Bitzer, and led to the Mocs’ final run. After back-to-back walks loaded the bases, Hunn dropped a single into short right that scored Graziani and put Florida Southern up 3-0.
The teams will wrap up their series with a doubleheader on Friday at 1:00 p.m.
