Laura Watten
With two runners on base in front of an energetic crowd at Robert E. Taylor Stadium on Saturday, designated player Candice Beards whacked a high fly ball to deep right field in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Fans stood on their feet anticipating a home run, but the ball slowed, finding the glove of Florida State right fielder Kirstin Austin on the warning track. Austin then fired the ball back to second base for an inning-ending double play.
That was a critical blow for a Terrapins softball team on the brink of tying the game at 4-4, but it didn’t let this one slip away. After a pair of walks in the seventh inning made it a one-run contest, an error and a passed ball allowed two more runs and secured a 5-4 Terps win.
“We’re a team that feeds off of our own energy,” center fielder Sara Acosta said. “We scrapped those two runs. … We caught them with a play on their heels and we ended up taking it.”
Though the Terps maintained that scrappy mentality throughout the weekend, they couldn’t build off the victory. The Seminoles turned up the pressure and won the next two games — 13-1 and 14-9 — to take the series.
Florida State punishes any mistakes its opposition makes, Terps coach Laura Watten said. That was apparent in the series’ final two games.
With the Terps (17-18, 4-2 ACC) pitching staff struggling to get ahead in the count, the Seminoles (28-12, 7-2) pieced together a nine-run rally in the third inning of Saturday’s second game. When pitchers Kaitlyn Schmeiser and Lexi Carroll hit the strike zone, Florida State batters consistently met balls with solid contact for RBIs and home runs.
The Terps mustered a run of their own in the same inning, as they loaded the bases after running out multiple ground balls to reach base safely. However, they didn’t have the power when they needed it and an illegal pitch provided the Terps’ only run of the game.
That trend seemed like it would continue into the final game Sunday. Powered by a grand slam from third baseman Courtney Senas, the Seminoles built on a 4-3 lead with seven more runs in the top of the third inning. After the rough inning, Acosta ordered the Terps to huddle next to the dugout.
“Getting [mercy-ruled] on our own field, it was kind of something I didn’t want to happen again,” Acosta said. “I just brought everyone together and said, ‘We got to play seven innings.’”
The short meeting revived the Terps. Facing a 13-3 deficit in the bottom of the fifth, Acosta hit an RBI double and infielder Lindsey Schmeiser’s single brought her home. After a three-run shot from outfielder Nikki Maier, the team was down five with only one out in the inning.
But two batters later, first baseman Corey Schwartz grounded into a double play to end the inning. This time, the team couldn’t bounce back after having a potential game-changing rally halted. It scored one more run in the sixth before getting shut out in the seventh. Though the Terps conceded more than 10 runs in both of their losses this weekend, Watten took solace in the character they displayed during the series.
“I felt like we actually, today [Sunday], scored enough runs to win,” Watten said. “We had a lot of fight and we had a lot of hunger and we just didn’t give up.”
The Terps will hope to yield more favorable results on Wednesday against a struggling Coppin State team. Considering the Terps’ performances against top-flight competition like Florida State, Watten is maintaining her optimism moving forward into the midweek doubleheader.
“It’s still early conference time,” she said. “We just need to take it one day at a time and keep going as hard as we can.”
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