Salukis down UT Martin in Blaylock’s 1,000th game
A good pitching performance from senior Savanna Dover bolstered the Salukis to a victory over UT-Martin in the first mid-week game of the season.
“We played pretty well today apart from a little mix-up in the first inning,” head coach Kerri Blaylock said. “I thought Savanna Dover settled down and threw a really good ball game. I thought we hit the ball hard all day. The wind was blowing in a little bit so we couldn’t get anything to go out. We just hung in there until the end.”
The Salukis opened the scoring in the top of the first when sophomore Katelyn Massa singled up the middle to score fellow sophomore Maddy Vermejan from second.
The Skyhawks answered in the bottom of the first when Dover committed her one glaring mistake of the game when she threw the ball into right field while trying to throw out a runner at first. Another throwing error on the play allowed UT-Martin’s leadoff hitter to score and tie the game at 1-1.
Dover settled down after the rocky first inning. She allowed just two hits and a walk until being taken out of the game in the sixth inning.
For as good as Dover was, Martin’s starter Caitlin Karo matched her. Karo threw five-straight shutout innings and kept her team in the game until the top of the seventh when Massa struck again to score Vermejan from second for the go-ahead run.
“Coming in [Karo] had below a 2.00 ERA,” Blaylock said. “I felt really good getting a couple of earned runs off of her. We finished it off.”
Junior Brianna Jones earned the win to improve to 12-1 on the season. Jones struck out two in 1.1 innings pitched.
Massa generated all of the Salukis runs in the game by bookending the game with RBI hits to score Vermejan. Massa was 4-4 on the day with 2 RBI. Vermejan was 1-3 with two runs scored.
“Kate and Maddy had a great day today along with our pitching,” Blaylock said. “Massa was really, really good today and I’m really proud of her.”
The win came in Blaylock’s 1,000th game of her career. She is Southern’s all-time leader in wins with 642 and one of two coaches in the program’s history.
With the win, the Salukis improved to 14-9 on the season. It was Southern’s seventh win in 10 games and the fourth out of its last five games. Looking forward, the Salukis take their momentum into the start of the MVC season when they hosts Loyola for three games at Charlotte West Stadium.
“If we continue to clean up our defensive mistakes, I feel like we’re in pretty good shape,” Blaylock said.
The Salukis play Loyola in a doubleheader on Saturday starting at noon.
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