April 25, 2014
Gainesville, Fla. - The 15th-ranked Mizzou Tigers (37-12 overall, 13-6 in Southeastern Conference play) jumped out to a 5-0 lead at 3rd-ranked Florida (41-9, 11-8) Friday night, and withstood a late rally from the Gators to hold on for a 5-3 victory in the first game of a three-game series.
Freshman pitcher Tori Finucane (Germantown, Md.) was dominant most of the night, as she faced only two batters over the minimum through six innings (allowing a single and a walk). She was supported nicely by her teammates, who plated two runs in the third inning on a pair of hits coupled with a pair of Gator errors, followed by a three-run top of the fifth. The fifth-inning rally came with two outs; with the key blow a two-run double by junior IF Angela Randazzo (Poway, Calif.) which made it 4-0 Tigers. Junior IF Corrin Genovese (East Amherst, N.Y.) followed Randazzo's blow with a run-scoring single to pad the lead to 5-0.
Carrying a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh, Finucane (who improved to 18-5 on the season) gave up a three hits, including a solo home run and a two-run homer to account for the final score, but she closed the door, inducing a foul out to sophomore C Sami Fagan (Dunnellon, Fla.) to end the game. Finucane, who came into the game with an earned run average of 1.61 (second-lowest in the SEC), won her eighth straight start, while her team has now won eight straight SEC games dating back to April 5th.
The top of the Tiger batting order was on base all night against Gator ace RHP Hannah Rogers, as sophomore OF Taylor Gadbois (3-for-4, 2 runs), Fagan (2-for-4) and sophomore OF Emily Crane (2-for-4, 1 RBI) combined for seven of Mizzou's 10 hits. But it was freshman IF Kelli Schkade (Albany, Texas) who was the real fire starter from the nine hole in the order.
Schkade started both rallies for the Tigers, as she reached to lead off both the third and fifth innings. Her ground ball to second base to start the Tiger third was misplayed by Florida's 2B Kelsey Stewart. She would later come around to score on an infield single by Crane that hit off the glove of UF's shortstop and rolled into left field. In the fifth, Schkade singled cleanly to right center, and she would score on Randazzo's clutch two-out double, her eighth two-bagger of the season. Randazzo finished with three runs batted in, as she plated Gadbois for MU's second run of the third inning on a groundout to short, as Gadbois sped in from third on a contact play.
Mizzou and Florida will meet at Noon (central time) Saturday afternoon from Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, as the Tigers will look to clinch the series with a win. The final game of the three-game set will be played Sunday at 10 a.m. (central). Both games will be available as an online radio broadcast for subscribers to the Mizzou Network at www.MizzouNetwork.com.