The season hasn’t gone to plan for the Missouri Tigers in the early going. The Tigers dropped to just 11-13, 0-3 SEC after getting swept in the opening series of conference play last weekend.
But starting last night, the Tigers have a chance to get on track as they play at home for the first time this year in the Mizzou Invitational.
“It’s the same situation, not putting all three facets together,” Missouri softball coach Larissa Anderson said. “I thought defensively, we played very well. That was kind of something that we’ve been addressing early on in the year. That defense was hurting us and our defense was great.”
The Tigers opened the Mizzou Invitational with a double-header sweep of South Dakota State and Princeton.
Missouri will host Michigan at 5:30 p.m. today, Quinnipiac at 4 p.m. Saturday and Kansas City at 1:30 p.m. Sunday (in a rescheduled game after the home opener March 4 was snowed out and is not part of the invitational).
“I think the biggest thing is playing at home, I mean, we’ve only had three practices in our stadium,” Anderson said. “... we’ve played 24 games and they’ve all been on the road and being able to play in our own stadium, in our own locker room, having a real good home game routine, that’s exciting in itself. To bring Mizzou softball back into our home field and being able to get the atmosphere and the energy going. Then to be able to carry that into some of our conference opponents coming up.”
The Tigers have struggled in multiple facets early in the season, but in the series against Kentucky, the issues came from within the circle.
“The disappointing thing (in the Kentucky series) was our pitching staff this weekend,” Anderson said. “We were extremely strong last weekend (in the Shocker Invitational in Wichita from Feb. 28-through-March 2) … We just left the ball over the heart of the plate, we didn’t get a lot of swings and misses and Kentucky is an unbelievable team. But I also know we have unbelievable pitchers and I expect a lot more out of them moving forward. We’ve got to be able to figure out how to get some batters out.”
Anderson said the issues came not with getting Strike 1, but what came after with the failure to execute out pitches when ahead in the count.
She said because of the promising outings the Tiger rotation had produced earlier in the season, she isn’t worried about them getting back on track.
But as the pitching has fallen into some struggles, the Tiger defense, which had been a major issue through the first couple of weeks, has improved greatly.
One big piece of that has been getting solid defensive play up the middle from senior Kara Daly, who initially struggled with her move from third to shortstop, but has figured out her new position.
“Extremely strong,” Anderson said of Daly’s play. “I mean, very, very consistent. She’s attacking the ball the way she would at third base and that’s what she needs to do to keep herself on time. … There isn’t a doubt that when the ball’s hit at her, that she’s going to make the play.”
And that improvement on defense has come with a continuation of a strong offensive presence up and down the lineup for a team that averaged 6.67 runs per game in its opening SEC series.
The Tigers are going into their own invitational hoping to get all three facets playing well at the same time and through two games, they have.
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