Friday night at Mizzou Softball Stadium should have been a celebratory occasion. In front of a very nice sized crowd of 2,864 and with a great giveaway — Truman the Tiger bobbleheads! — the Missouri Tigers (27-28, 8-15 SEC) celebrated their four seniors— Haidyn Sokoloski, Kayley Lenger, Courtney Donahue and Cierra Harrison —and hoped to eke out a victory and stay at .500 with one game left to go in the regular season. Alas, it was not meant to be, as not only could the Tigers not figure out the Lady
Vols’ elite pitching which came courtesy of starter Sage Marjetko (5 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K) and reliever Karlyn Pickens (2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 4 K), but they also couldn’t get out of their own way.
“I’m disappointed defensively,” Mizzou head coach Larissa Anderson said post-game. “In some of our play, we gave away the game defensively. It hurt us, and we got to play better defense tomorrow. Defense is our staple, so we got to be much stronger defensively tomorrow.”
Aaah, tomorrow. There’s only so many tomorrows left of this season, folks. And as the raindrops began to fall in the bottom of the seventh inning with the Tigers staring yet another loss in the face, I thought of Hillary Duff’s song “Come Clean” and how that song and the subsequent rain shower was really fitting for describing this team’s NCAA tournament hopes.
Let the rain fall down and wake my dreams
Let it wash away my sanity
‘Cause I wanna feel the thunder, I wanna scream
Let the rain fall down
I’m coming clean
With the top of the lineup set for action — the section of the lineup you want, mind you, as they’ve been the only productive ones as of late — Addy Waits grounded out to first, unable to make heads or tails of what superhuman pitcher Karlyn Pickens was throwing, and Abby Carr had no better luck, unable to lay off the rise ball and went down on strikes for two quick outs. A spark of hope arose when Stefania Abruscato reached on an error, but Abby Hay struck out to end it.
It started much better than it ended, however, so let’s get into it.
Tigers Strike First
For the second game in a row, the Tigers got off to a good start against Sage Marjetko, the reigning SEC Pitcher of the Week, which the announcers reminded us of approximately 5 billion times. But unlike Game 1 when she had a short leash and Lady Vols head coach Karen (cool name) Weekly took her out almost immediately, Friday Sage stayed in and was able to work around some action on the basepaths with little to no damage.
Similar to Thursday’s game, Friday started with a leadoff walk from Addy Waits before Abby Carr struck out (she had a tough offensive game). Waits then stole second and came around to score on a Stefania Abruscato single down the line to make it 1-0. Back-to-back singles by Abby Hay and Sidney Forrester then loaded the bases, but Marjetko dialed in, striking out both Saniya Hill and Madison Uptegrove to end the threat.
This was the best chance they’d get, my friends.
“We played tough. I think we had some opportunities, especially with the bases loaded in the first inning, we could have capitalized on that,” Anderson said. “And you know, you don’t get many chances with runners in scoring position against a team like Tennessee, and we let that slip away from us.”
Slip away, indeed.
In the second, Sophie Smith was hit by a pitch on her glove hand and then took second on a Kayley Lenger sac bunt. Smith was clearly in a lot of pain, basically keeled over at second in between pitches, and it was honestly hard to watch. She’d stay in through the end of the fourth inning, by the way, and when asked about her status post-game, Anderson said she was clearly in pain but told her she was “fine” and was still waiting to hear back from medical.
To finish out the inning, Waits popped up to second for the second out and Carr followed with another K — she had a lot of those on Friday. The injury to Smith would come back to bite Mizzou in the butt later on, so keep it ready.
In the bottom of the third, Hay reached on a fielding error by the third baseman— it went right through her legs — but that would be all the offense Missouri could muster as Forrester and Hill recorded outs.
Tennessee Ties it up
Marissa McCann was able to keep the Lady Vols scoreless in the first two innings despite allowing a pair of baserunners in the first on a one-out walk to one Leach twin (Alannah) and a two-out single to the other Leach twin (Gabby). In the second, McCann allowed just a one-out slapping single to Sophia Knight but otherwise held Tennessee in check.
It wasn’t until the top of the third that Ella Dodge went yard to deep right to tie the game 1-1 with a leadoff homer, but that would be the only run allowed that inning.
And Takes the Lead…
In the top of the fourth, the Lady Vols utilized some really aggressive baserunning and when combined with some fielding mishaps — Mizzou came into this series with the SEC’s top-rated defense and will leave it assuredly NOT —, it allowed Tennessee to re-gain the lead. A two-out error on the throw by shortstop Madison Uptegrove was followed by a Saniya Hill throwing error on a single to left field. And then that damn Ella Dodge struck again, singling to left, allowing two runners to score and make it 3-1 and end McCann’s day at the dish for Courtney Donahue. McCann, now 10-10 on the season, allowed six hits and three runs (1 earned) in 3 2/3 innings. She had no strikeouts and allowed a walk.
“I felt we beat ourselves because of the defense,” HCLA said post-game. “Errors are going to happen. Mistakes are going to happen. Balls are hit hard. It’s how we respond after it, and then to have three more balls put in play after that, that’s where we got to be stronger. So we hurt ourselves… I mean, we shot ourselves in the foot and put ourselves in the hole, so we got to play better behind our pitching staff,”
When asked to elaborate on what specifically went wrong, Anderson was decisive. “I feel like they’re not anticipating the ball to be hit to them. When I called a timeout at one point, that’s exactly what I said… they were a step late, rather than expecting that every single ball is going to be hit at them hard, they were startled at the ball, and they have to be more attentive to when the ball is being hit and how it’s being hit.”
Donahue’s day continued in the fifth as Leach (Gabby) singled to left and Clarke reached on a fielder’s choice. After a Morrison walk and Knight foul out, her day was complete and in came Carr. In one inning of work, she faced six batters and allowed two hits and a walk to go with one earned run.
With Carr now pulling double duty as a hitter and in the circle, she allowed a Makenzie Butt single to shallow center which made it 4-1, and a walk to Ruttan loaded the bases with Tiger killer Ella Dodge up to bat. Luckily, she grounded out to first and Carr escaped the inning with minimal damage.
Tigers Fight Back
In the bottom of the fourth, Madison Uptegrove singled to center, but a still clearly in pain Sophie Smith struck out — it looked reallll bad — before Gracie Britton and Waits weakly grounded out, stranding Uptegrove at second.
In the fifth, Abruscato reached with a leadoff double down the right field line and was followed by an Abby Hay walk. Abruscato reached third on a wild pitch and then scored on Sidney Forrester’s groundout to make it 4-2. Hill worked a full count before skying a high fly ball to center to strand the runner at second.
“I thought down the stretch, we continued to compete and give ourselves opportunities,” Anderson said after the game, “but trying to get multiple hits in a row off of caliber pitching that Tennessee has is pretty tough, and we let those opportunities slip away.”
The Return of Pickens
Following a 1-2-3 inning by Abby Carr — the only one of the game for Tennessee — Marjetko’s day was done and in came likely AUSL no. 1 pick, Karlyn Pickens, destroyer of souls and bats in Game 1.
Surprisingly (to the media, anyway), Anderson made the curious decision to put Claire Cahalan in for Uptegrove, who got on base the last time out. The Tigers were no match for Karlyn, of course, who swiftly disposed of the Tigers on two strikeouts and a lineout to third.
In the seventh, Carr retook the mound and while she allowed singles to Clarke and Knight, niehter would come out to score thanks to some really nice glove work and stretching by Abby Hay at first base, and the Tigers got one more chance in the home-half. As mentioned up top, it didn’t go well, and they went out with a whimper.
Senior Moments
As mentioned earlier, the Tigers celebrated their seniors on Saturday after the game’s conclusion, with two of the players having stuck with Missouri throughout their careers. Sokoloski is in her second season and came from Oklahoma State, and has already announced that she will be using her fifth year of eligibility to play volleyball at Wright State. Courtney Donahue is a former JUCO All-American. That leaves Lenger and Harrison, who have been in Columbia the entire time.
“I’m just really proud of the four seniors that we have and their loyalty, love, commitment, dedication to Mizzou, our program, and their teammates,” head coach Larissa Anderson said postgame. “I’m really, really proud of who they are and how they represent this program, and I know all four of them are going to be very, very successful in their careers after they graduate. They’ve left a lasting legacy about the game.”
One Game at a Time
“We’ve gone to the championship game in the SEC twice. We’ve made some deep runs. We’ve played through this conference. We know how tough it’s going to be. We got to focus on tomorrow. And you know, we want to come out,” Anderson said.
She continued. “We’re playing really, really hard right now, but we have to play better on all three sides of the game. We got to play better defense. I know we’re going to get great pitching performance out of Cierra Harrison tomorrow. She’s the starter, and we have everybody available when you’re on Sundays… I know we’re going to get really, really deep bullpen. We got to have some timely hitting. So we’ve got to make sure that we focus on the things that we can control, and then wherever we’re seated in the SEC tournament, it’s win or go home, and that’s what we’re up against.”
If you’re into history, you may recall that last season was the first since 2006 that the Tigers did not make the NCAA Tournament. You’ll have to go back even further — to the 2001-02 season — to find the last time they missed the tourney in two consecutive years (they actually missed three in a row back then).
I don’t know about y’all, but I’m tired of “making history” for negative reasons. How bout they just get the W on Sunday and we’ll see where the chips fall?
