Missouri softball came back after a nail-biter win Thursday night with a five-inning win Friday night. The Tigers (26-18, 9-8) raised their conference record to above .500 with a 8-0 victory over Texas A&M (25-20, 3-14).
Missouri’s offense got off to a fast start, scoring three runs in the first. Sophomore Kimberly Wert reached on a dropped pop-up by the first baseman, scoring freshman Jazmyn Rollin from second base. Sophomore Kara Decker drove in Wert and sophomore Hatti Moore, who walked, with a single to center.
“Whenever I have runners on the bases I’m always just like, ‘OK, be aggressive but stay within yourself. Get a good pitch in the zone and go after it,’” Decker said. “So really that’s what I was thinking. I saw a good pitch come in there. I went after it.”
The Tigers scored five runs off of three hits in the second. Redshirt freshman Kendyll Bailey, sophomore Brooke Wilmes and Moore all recorded singles. Before her single, Moore came up to bat with the bases loaded and hit a rocket just left of the third base line, right at coach Larissa Anderson standing next to Wilmes on third. The ball just barely missed Anderson as she dove out of the way.
“She kind of just looked over to me and she started laughing. So once I knew that she was OK, we both just started laughing at each other,” Wilmes said. “And I told her, ‘I think in your past life you were a breakdancer.’”
The Tigers held their eight-run lead for the next two and a half innings to win by run-rule.
Sophomore pitcher Cassie Gasper went all five innings without a strikeout or a walk en route to her 11th win of the season. The Aggie hitters managed to get four hits off of her.
“My job is to get groundouts and pop-ups and that was all I needed to do going into it,” Gasper said. “Strikeouts are great, but if I don’t get those I just need to get groundouts and pop-ups so that my defense can play behind me.”
The Missouri defense handled the Aggies fairly well, despite recording one error. Texas A&M wasn’t able to capitalize on the error like the Tigers offense did on the Aggies’ two errors.
“Their fundamentals are solid,” Anderson said. “Errors are going to happen. I can’t expect them to play perfect all the time. They are playing the game and they are understanding.”
_Edited by Emily Leiker | eleiker@themaneater.com_
