HATTIESBURG, Miss (May 11, 2017) -- FIU softball tied the school record with its 44
th win and the second-seeded Panthers won their first game of the Conference USA Championships after a 7-1 victory over third-seeded Louisiana Tech Thursday at Southern Miss Softball Stadium. The Panthers now advance to the semifinal of the tournament, facing 23
rd-ranked Marshall, the top seed of the tournament, at 11 a.m. Eastern Friday. A win puts FIU in its first C-USA Championship game on Saturday.
FIU is now 44-12 overall, 1-2 all-time in the C-USA Tournament. LA Tech falls to 34-22. The Lady Techsters face eighth-seeded WKU at 1:30 p.m. in an elimination game. FIU is now 9-0 all-time against LA Tech in softball, including a 2-0 record in conference tournament games.
After an error allowed a baserunner in the first, senior first baseman
Stephanie Texeira (Miami, Florida / Gulliver Prep) hammered a 1-1 pitch out to left center and the 2-0 lead. It was her 15
th home run of season, two away from the school record for a single season and the 47
th of her career, the FIU record for a Panthers career. It was also her fourth home run in four games against LA Tech in the past seven days. The Panthers have scores 56 runs in the first inning of their 56 season games. FIU is 23-1 when scoring in the first inning this season.
"We just needed to come out and play with energy," said FIU Head Coach
Gator Rebhan after the game. "We came out with the right amount of energy and when we do that, we are tough to beat."
FIU posted three more runs in the fourth. Texeira led the inning off with a double off the fence in right. After an out, junior
Kasandra Castle (Lake Worth, Florida / Palm Beach Central HS) was hit by a pitch. Freshman shortstop
Jessica Rivera (Miami, Florida / Gulliver Prep) lined an RBI single to right to score Texeira. Senior
Sammi Green (Marietta, Georgia) then followed with an RBI single to right, scoring Castle. A throwing error on the play scored the third Panthers' run for the 5-0 lead.
LA Tech got an unearned run in the fifth after a passed ball advanced a runner who had walked. Saile induced an inning-ending 1-6-3 double play to close the frame.
FIU added two more in the bottom of the fifth to complete the scoring. A leadoff walk was followed by an infield single by sophomore
Jackie Schoff (Bradenton, Florida / Lakewood Ranch HS) put runners at first and second. A fielder's choice placed senior
Ashley Leon (Miami, Florida / Gulliver Prep) on base and a wild pitch moved up Schoff and Leon, opening first base. That made the decision easy for LA Tech, and they chose to intentionally walk Texeira, but a wild pitch on the play scored Leon from third before the walk took place. A fielder's choice from
Dani Mowry (Cocoa, Florida / Space Coast HS) produced an RBI for the game's final scoring play.
Conference USA Freshman of the Year
Shannon Saile (Land O'Lakes, Florida / Land O'Lakes HS) struck out three and gave up three walks and five hits to secure her 18
th win of the year. She pitched her 22
nd complete game of the year, second-most in a season in FIU history.
Saile is 8-0, with two saves, in her last 10 appearances, holding teams, including one win against Marshall, to an ERA of 0.12, and a collective batting average of .105 in 56.2 innings. She has 65 strikeouts in that span and 217 for the season, second-most in a single season in school history.
Texeira finished with two runs, two hits and two RBI in the game. Her homer was her fifth of year that provided the game's winning RBI, to go with three more that tied a game which FIU later won. She and Schoff had two hits each to tie for the game-high lead.
The Panthers beat Marshall twice in the three-game series in Miami back in mid-April. After a 2-1 loss in game one, the Panthers finished with 8-4 and 3-1 wins to take the series, the only league series lost by the Thundering Herd this season.
The team that loses between Marshall and FIU at 11 a.m. will play the winner of the second Friday game, the losing teams from today, at 4 p.m. to earn a spot in the championship game Saturday, which will be at 1 p.m. Eastern on CBS Sports Network.
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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/.
