The No. 19 Auburn softball team pushed the No. 15 Florida Gators to the brink but was unable to come away with the victory in game one of the series, losing 3-2 in extra innings at Florida.
[autotag]Maddie Penta[/autotag] had another strong start for the Tigers, holding the Gators to three runs (two earned) on three hits in 7.0 innings of work. She struck out 12 batters and walked three before she left the game after throwing 133 pitches.
“We battled,” said head coach [autotag]Mickey Dean[/autotag]. “It’s a tough one to talk about. We always talk about how defense has to travel. We fall on a fly ball. We come up short and don’t get our glove down on a ground ball. Our hitters battled. Our pitchers battled. We battled on defense late. When you’re playing on the road, runs are hard to come by. We can’t give runs away. We had an opportunity tonight. We have another opportunity tomorrow.”
Penta walked the first two batters in the bottom of the eighth inning, leading Dean to put in [autotag]Shelby Lowe[/autotag]. The Tigers intentionally walked the next batter to load the bases but Lowe gave up a single to the next hitter and Florida won 3-2.
The Tigers are now 28-11 overall and 6-4 in SEC play. They are allowing 2.6 runs per game in conference play but are scoring just 3.0 runs of their own.
The Tigers found themselves trailing after the Gators scored two runs in the third inning. They got a run back in the fifth inning when [autotag]Aspen Godwin[/autotag] scored on a Florida error.
Down to their final out in the seventh inning, [autotag]Icess Tresvic[/autotag] blasted a solo home run to left field to tie it up and force extras.
Game two of the series is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. CT Friday and will be on the SEC Network.
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