CLEARWATER, Fla. – The fourth-ranked Georgia softball team defeated No. 7/5 Florida State Saturday morning in five innings, 20-10, in the Shiners Children’s Clearwater Invitational at Eddie C. Moore Complex.
Georgia’s afternoon game against Minnesota was rained out and will not be made up.
The Bulldogs remain undefeated on the season at 9-0, finishing the Shiners Children’s Clearwater Invitational 4-0 with top-25 wins against No. 6/8 Oklahoma State, No. 19/20 UCLA, and No. 7/5 Florida State.
As a team, Georgia hit .311 in the tournament, scoring 41 runs in four games. Sara Mosley drove in 10 runs to lead the Bulldogs, scattering four doubles. Sydney Kuma went 8-for-13 on the weekend to hit .615 with a home run. In all, Georgia hit eight home runs.
In the circle, Lilli Backes finished the weekend 2-0 with a save in 16 innings, striking out 10 batters.
Georgia 20, Florida State 10 (5 inn.)
Georgia routed No. 7/5 Florida State to begin its final day in Clearwater Saturday. The Bulldogs’ 20 runs were the most ever scored against the Seminoles in FSU’s history.
The offense scattered 16 hits for its 20 runs. Mosley, Kuma, and freshman Emily Digby each scattered three hits. Mosley set a career-best seven RBI while Digby and Jayda Kearney each drove in four. Kearney knocked two home runs in the game and scored four times. Nine total Dogs hitters recorded a hit including home runs from Kearney, Lauren Burnett, and Sarah Gordon.
Shelby Walters pitched two and a third innings in her start, allowing six runs, three earned, on four hits. Backes (3-0) earned her second win in back-to-back appearances, working two and two-thirds innings in relief, allowing four runs on seven hits.
The bats came alive early as Georgia put up five runs in the first inning. After a leadoff walk to Dallis Goodnight, Kearney stepped in and hit a towering two-run home run to go ahead quick on the Seminoles, 2-0. With runners in scoring position, Mosley doubled to the left-center gap to drive in both runners and widen the lead to 4-0. Digby followed with a double of her own to score Mosley and make it a five-spot in the first.
FSU jumped on the board with a two-out solo home run in the bottom of the inning, 5-1.
Georgia mounted a two-out rally in the second, scoring nine runs to open a 14-1 lead. The scoring started when Mosley doubled with bases loaded to drive in three. Digby picked up her second double, a two-RBI gapper to left center, then Burnett hit a pinch hit two-run home run followed by a two-run homer from Kearney, her second of the game.
A pair of two-out throwing errors by Walters extended the bottom of the second and allowed three FSU errors to score, 14-4.
Gordon hit her first Bulldog home run, a solo shot down the right field line in the third, to bring the lead back to 11, 15-4. Georgia proceeded to load the baes then Hannah Davila drew a two-out walk to drive in a run, picking up her first career RBI and bringing the lead to 16-4.
Two RBI base hits from the Seminoles cut the Georgia lead back to 16-6 in the bottom of the third.
Digby picked up her third hit and fourth RBI on a single to the wall in right to drive in Mosley in the top of the fourth to bring the lead back to 11, 17-6.
The Seminoles used a two-run home run in the bottom of the inning to cut the lead to 17-8.
Georgia’s offense didn’t stop in the top of the sixth. The Dogs loaded the bases then Jaiden Fields drove in Kearney with a base hit to left. Mosley picked up RBI number six and seven with a double to left center, bringing the tally to 20-8.
FSU didn’t go quietly plating two runs on a sac fly and an RBI single, 20-10, but Backes held the Seminoles to complete the five-inning victory.
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