March 14, 2014
By MUTigers.com softball reporter Walt Scher (@Ctrl_Walt_Dlt)
The No. 16 Mizzou softball team opens up its home schedule this weekend when the No. 9 Kentucky Wildcats come to Columbia, Mo., for the first time as Southeastern Conference foes. After an impressive 7-0 win over No. 13-ranked Texas A&M last Friday in College Station, Texas, Missouri dropped the remaining games on Saturday and Sunday to give the series to the Aggies. Weather forced a quick turnaround for the team as they went on the road to play a doubleheader on Tuesday against Evansville, but did not miss a beat, sweeping the games, 7-3 and 6-2.
Kentucky is coming off a weekend series victory on the road at Mississippi State in which it outscored the Bulldogs, 10-2, while winning two of three. Its only loss came on a two-out, walk-off double. On Tuesday, the Wildcats took on Marshall in non-conference action and came away with a 6-2 victory to improve their record to 19-3. Away from Lexington, the Wildcats are 16-3 with losses to Kent State, Michigan and Mississippi State.
Last season, the showdown between Mizzou and Kentucky in Lexington, Ky., was, like it is this year, a Top-20 matchup in which Missouri took two out of three against the Wildcats. A few current Tigers had a big impact in that series. Mackenzie Sykes (Blue Springs, Mo.) went 4-for-10 with two RBI. Carlie Rose (Nixa, Mo.) wreaked havoc with a run scored in each game along with one hit and five walks. Sykes is off to a good start on the year as she shares the team lead with four home runs along with 18 RBI in 18 starts.
Lauren Cumbess and Kelsey Nunley, the only two Wildcat pitchers Missouri faced last year, will be back once again for Kentucky. In last year's series, the two combined for 23 innings pitched, 10 earned runs on 24 hits and 17 walks while striking out 17. Cumbess and Nunley have been hot for the Wildcats this season, combining for a 12-1 record in 19 appearances, including 17 starts.
Cumbess and Nunley will have their hands full with a few Tigers that have been hitting the ball at an alarmlying stout rate to start the season. Redshirt sophomore OF Taylor Gadbois (Maryville, Mo.) is in the middle of a 16-game hitting streak, two shy of the Missouri all-time record set by Rhea Taylor in 2010, and is currently batting .484 on the season after going 4-for-7 in Tuesdays doubleheader. Gadbois has also been a force on the base paths, as she is a Top 10 base stealer in the nation already with 19 swipes in 21 attempts. The potential showdown between Gadbois on the base paths vs. Kentucky catcher Griffin Joiner is one to watch, as Joiner has thrown out four of the five runners that have attempted to steal on her watch.
Fellow outfielder sophomore Emily Crane (Troy, Mo.) joins Gadbois as a plus-.400 hitter (.403) and avid base stealer as she has stolen nine in 10 chances on the year. Crane also leads the team in RBI with 22 and is slugging an impressive .613. If Crane and Gadbois can continue to get on base and advance on their own power, look for their teammates to continue bringing them home. The duo has combined for 32 runs scored and 25 RBI, meaning they have had a part in nearly 50 percent of the Tigers scoring this season.
Freshman pitching duo Tori Finucane (Germantown, Md.) and Casey Stangel (Coeur d'Alene, Idaho) have had early success in the circle for Mizzou. Against Texas A&M, which entered last weekend averaging 7.2 runs per game, Finucane put the clamps on the Aggies' offense with a complete game shutout, striking out seven while allowing just three hits. In her other 7.2 innings of work over the weekend, Finucane allowed just one earned run along with five hits and three walks. Stangel has seen a solid amount of time in the circle, with a team-leading 55.1 innings pitched along with a team-leading seven wins. In the second game of Tuesday's doubleheader at Evansville, Stangel pitched a complete game, giving up only one earned run on six hits and one walk while striking out five.
Finucane and Stangel will be testing themselves against an experienced lineup that can hit for power. Kentucky was ranked 23rd in the nation (through March 9 games) in home runs per game with 1.14. Joiner leads the team with six long balls to go with her team highs in average (.383) and RBI (14). Cumbess is also a dual threat, as she leads the Wildcats in at-bats with 68 and holds a .279 average along with 12 RBI. As a team, the Wildcats bat .267 compared to .304 for the Tigers. Their number of home runs shows how aggressive Kentucky is at the plate, unfortunately for them, so does their strikeout rate; 117 strikeouts in 570 at-bats.
Both teams enter the weekend coming off midweek victories with red-hot hitters and pitchers off to dominating starts. A Top 20 showdown is set to begin this weekend at University Field on Friday, March 14, at 6:30 p.m. Saturday's game will begin at 2 p.m., with the final game of the series on Sunday at Noon.