COLUMBIA, Mo. - Missouri softball hadn't won a Southeastern Conference series since March 31-April 2 against Alabama a season ago. The Tigers were 8-22 in their last 10 winless SEC series, split evenly between 2017 and 2018, but they broke that streak in a big way Saturday against No. 10 Auburn.
The team, in interim head coach Gina Fogue's first year, came close to that breakthrough against LSU and Georgia the past two weekends, but Missouri (24-21, 6-11 SEC) sealed things Saturday with a walk-off win in Game 1 and a dominant performance in the circle from Lauren Rice in Game 2, her third straight complete game and second straight in SEC play.
Missouri will try for the sweep today at noon, but there's a chance the game won't be played as April snow threatens.
Rain suspended the first game Friday afternoon, but Saturday Missouri was making it rain - home runs, that is. Trailing 3-0 when the game was called and 4-0 entering the bottom of the sixth, the Tigers engineered their second four-run comeback in the sixth inning against a conference opponent of the season. And like Missouri's walk-off win against LSU at the end of March, this comeback started with a solo home run from Cayla Kessinger in the sixth and ended in a 5-4 Missouri win.
She and the team got a few extra hours to prepare for Kaylee Carlson, one of the nation's best pitchers, and Kessinger made up for a double play and a strikeout Friday by taking a 1-0 pitch to straightaway center in the sixth. Then in the seventh inning, after Brooke Wilmes singled to shortstop with one out and Callie Martin singled to left, freshman Trenity Edwards pinch-hit for Hatti Moore and delivered a no-doubt bomb to left to tie the game 4-4, her fourth home run of the year. Carlson left a riseball up at Edwards' hands and she didn't miss.
"I was just excited because I tied the game, I knew that was a game-changer and would change the momentum for us in a very positive way," Edwards said. "I think about as I was rounding second base I just knew we were going to win the game."
Rylee Pierce followed with a deep fly-out to left and then Kessinger dug in again. She worked a 2-2 count from Carlson and then did just enough poking at a pitch down and away to send the ball off the chain-link fence in left and walk it off.
Missouri won the first game of its series at Auburn a year ago thanks in part to three home runs off of Carlson - two solo shots by Kirsten Mack and a two-run home run from Braxton Burnside - and entering the first game of this series, she had allowed just one home run in 59 innings against conference opponents.
Kessinger hit two in two innings.
"That walk-off home run, that was a pitcher's pitch," Kessinger said. "I just put a good swing on it. I don't think she did anything wrong there, she just threw me the same location three times and I took advantage of it.
"(Carlson's) a heck of a pitcher. She's one of the best that we're going to face, and she does a really good job at locating. She misses small, she doesn't make big mistakes, and when she does you have to take advantage of it, and I guess that was my mentality going into today."
Missouri won the nightcap 5-1 on seven strong innings from Rice and scored five runs on five hits, one each from Rylee Pierce, Braxton Burnside, Regan Nash, Brooke Wilmes and Callie Martin. In Rice's last 21 innings as a starter, she's allowed 13 hits, just one for extra bases, two runs, both earned, on five walks and 13 strikeouts.
"She's doing well," Fogue said of Rice. "I think in the last five, six games she's thrown we've seen some really good stuff from her. It's keeping the ball down when she does well, spotting it a little bit better now. She's finding her groove better."
Rice really gets going when she can work her way through two or three innings. Missouri isn't always afforded the luxury to leave her in when she struggles early, but Rice's best outings have come when she avoided early trouble or stayed in after a handful of early runs.
Missouri struck first in the second game. Pierce started with a four-pitch walk, Amanda Sanchez was hit by a pitch with one out, and Kolby Romaine reached on a fielder's choice at second base. Her pinch runner, Delaney McDannold, then stole second and Burnside singled to center on a full count to drive in two runners.
Auburn responded in the second, when Kendall Veach, who had two of her team's five hits, hit a two-out home run to center, but the visiting Tigers couldn't manage much else off of Rice. Game two starter Makayla Martin, who entered the game second only to Carlson in ERA with a 0.95 mark in conference games, walked Wilmes on five pitches to start the second and bounced a few of her drop balls several feet in front of home. First-year head coach Mickey Dean, formerly of James Madison, elected to pull Martin in favor of freshman Chardonnay Harris, who threw four innings of relief.
Pierce hit a home run off of the right field foul pole to drive in Martin in the fourth and gave Rice a cushion, and in the fifth, Nash and Wilmes staged a two-out rally, as Nash reached on a single to left and Wilmes doubled down the first base line. Nash's speed ensured there was no play at the plate.
Speed on the basepaths was a big factor, especially in the first game. Dean has the opposite attitude toward stealing bases as his predecessor, and the speedy Victoria Draper already has more stolen bases this year (37) than she did in three seasons under Clint Myers (18). Missouri knew this and prepared Hatti Moore for the occasion. She caught Bree Fornis and Draper stealing in the second inning and Veach in the fifth on Friday. Auburn finished 1-for-4 on steal attempts in the first game and tried once more in the first inning of the second game, but Moore's arm was quicker than Brittany Maresette, and Dean didn't call another steal in the game.
The two wins bumped Missouri to 10th in the conference standings ahead of Mississippi State (4-8), Mississippi (4-11) and Kentucky (3-10).
The Rebels and Bulldogs are playing one another this weekend, so a sweep from either team would help the Tigers distance themselves from the bottom rung, while the Wildcats are a game away from a sweep at the hands of Texas A&M. Those wins also helped boost Missouri's post-season resume. They're in the RPI Top 25 and made a regional at 29-28, 7-16 SEC a year ago, and could very well turn in a better record this year.