SAN ANTONIO (April 9, 2017) -- Redshirt senior Dani Mowry (Cocoa, Florida / Space Coast HS) broke a four-all tie in the seventh inning with her career-best fourth homer of the season and the FIU Panthers held on to win 7-4 in the series finale at UTSA Sunday in Conference USA action at Roadrunner Field. The win salvages one win in the series for FIU and ends a four-game skid.
 
The Panthers improve to 32-10 on the season, 8-4 in Conference USA. It was the end of a nine-game conference road swing for FIU, finishing 5-4 in the three weekends. UTSA is now 16-24 overall, 6-9 in C-USA.
 
The Panthers welcomed sophomore Jackie Schoff (Bradenton, Florida / Lakewood Ranch HS) back to the lineup, and she scored the first run of the game in the top of the first inning. Schoff missed the last seven games, during which the Panthers scored just 2.4 runs per contest and batted .236 as a team, after a 5.7 average and .305 average with her in the lineup.
 
Schoff walked and stole second in the first inning. A sacrifice bunt moved her to third and a Stephanie Texeira (Miami, Florida / Gulliver Prep) single to right drove in Schoff for the 1-0 lead. The RBI gives Texeira 35 to tie for the team lead and into second in Conference USA.
 
FIU scored again in the third with two more runs, the first on a Mowry RBI single and the second on one of two UTSA errors in the game.
 
As they did three times in the doubleheader on Saturday, the Roadrunners came from behind to tie the game. A three-run homer from Bailee Baldwin, her second of the weekend, tied the game on one swing with two outs off of FIU starter Shannon Saile (Land O'Lakes, Florida / Land O'Lakes HS).
 
FIU sophomore catcher Julia Gilbert (Rialto, California) hit a leadoff homer in the fourth to give FIU its second lead of the day. The homer was her third of the season and her second-straight to break a tie. FIU has won all three games in which she has a home run.
 
Two walks and a sacrifice bunt moved runners into scoring position, which became the second tying run of the game after a sacrifice fly with one out for a 4-all score.
 
That score held until the last frame, when Mowry took a one-out, 1-1 pitch to right center for the third lead of the game for the Panthers. Mowry has increased her home run total by one in each of her three playing seasons. It was her first go-ahead homer of the season and the latest in game for her this year. It was the third homer of the Panthers' 30 that took place in the seventh inning and the tenth to break a tie this year. FIU is 7-0 when hitting two or more homers in a game
 
Following the Mowry homer, freshman shortstop Jessica Rivera (Miami, Florida / Gulliver Prep) doubled and freshman third baseman Jocelin Soto (Oxnard, California) walked. Rivera got to third on a flyout in the outfield and Soto stole second for right fielder Brianna Bahadue (Miami, Florida / Gulliver Prep), who hit a two-out single to left center to drive in both baserunners and give the game its final three-run margin.
 
Saile came out after her two walks in the fourth. Sophomore Abby Summers (Weston, Missouri) tossed the final four innings, keeping UTSA off the board to give the offense a chance for the win. She allowed just one hit, but five walks, recording one strikeout to remain undefeated and get to 10-0. She lowered her team-leading ERA to 1.68 and has a perfect 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio with 62 punchouts and 31 walks. Nestled statistically in the middle are Summers' 47 hits allowed for a .196 batting average against. The Panthers lead C-USA in ERA (1.85), opponent batting average (.201) and wins (32).
 
Saile had four strikeouts to get her season total to 146, leaping past Kendra Laminack for 12^th-most in a single season.
 
The loss went to Lizzy Fox, who won the second game of the twinbill yesterday and relieved starter Nicole Merrill in the fourth inning. Fox gave up the two runs in the seventh and surrendered four hits and two walks in total. She falls to 10-13 on the year.
 
Mowry and Rivera had two hits each to get four of the Panthers' nine in the game. Seven different Panthers scored one run each, with Mowry and Bahadue driving in two each to lead the team. FIU had more hits than UTSA in all three games, and more hits than the opponent in the last nine contests (5-4 mark).
 
FIU will play host to league-leading Marshall next week. The Easter-weekend series starts with two games on Friday, starting at 4 p.m., and a noon Saturday finale. FIU sits second in the East Division, one game ahead of Florida Atlantic. The Panthers have the third-highest win percentage in C-USA after five weekends.
 

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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including Lime Court at FIU Arena and at Riccardo Silva Stadium.
 
About FIU: Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a "R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity" and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy and is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine's "America's Best Employers" list. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU's Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute.  FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.