In last Sunday’s win over Tennessee, eight of Missouri’s runs crossed the plate via home run. Thursday, Missouri got a little more creative, using a single, double, triple and a pair of sacrifice flies as well as a home run to manufacture scoring in the team’s 8-0, five inning win against No. 21 Arkansas (34-18, 12-11 Southeastern Conference) in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament in Lexington, Ky.
Junior left fielder Mackenzie Sykes drove in three runs in her first two plate appearances. Her first inning single scored senior catcher Jenna Marston, and her third inning triple drove in Marston and sophomore third baseman Angela Randazzo. Sykes scored one batter later on a sacrifice fly from sophomore first baseman Kelsea Roth, giving Missouri (34-10, 16-8 SEC) a 5-0 lead.
Sykes went 3-for-3 during the game with three RBIs.
“It makes me look like I know what I’m doing because I actually bumped her (Sykes) up a spot in the batting lineup, and she had a really nice day,” Missouri coach Ehren Earleywine said. “She’s a pretty good high-ball hitter and Beasley is a high-ball pitcher so it was a favorable matchup for her.”
In the fifth, Sykes doubled with one out. Roth once again followed her up with a big contribution; this time a two-run home run to left.
“I was swinging at a lot of bad pitches, so this time coming in I was looking for better pitches, and I got those,” Roth said.
Later in the inning, freshman Emily Crane’s double off the wall scored sophomore shortstop Corrin Genovese to give Missouri the eight-run lead needed to trigger the mercy rule.
Senior pitcher Chelsea Thomas earned the win, improving to 21-4. The SEC Pitcher of the Year threw five innings, striking out five and surrendering just two hits.
“I felt pretty good,” Thomas said. “My drop-ball was working well and got me a lot of groundouts. I kept my pitch count low which was part of the game plan coming in, and I felt like we knew their team pretty well and that helped us a lot.”
The teams met for a three game series at University Field in early April to a much different result, with Arkansas winning the final two games of the series. Arkansas coach Mike Larabee credited Missouri’s adjustments at the plate.
“The biggest thing was that when (sophomore pitcher) Kimmy Beasley started, she didn’t get ahead of the count and their plate discipline was a lot better,” Larabee said. “They sat on some pretty good hitting pitches. When you get behind in the count you have to throw strikes, and they capitalized.”
Missouri advances to the semifinals Friday at 8:30 p.m. where it will play No. 4 Tennessee which defeated South Carolina Thursday. Just five days ago, Earleywine said Hudson would pitch the second game, but Thursday he seemed to have changed his mind.
“I was really happy that we got to keep Chelsea’s pitch count down, 67 pitches. She felt great after the game,” Earleywine said. “We’re going to wake up tomorrow and see how she feels, but if I had to make a decision right now, she would probably throw tomorrow because there is absolutely no fatigue, no pain at all.”
