TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Kylee Hanson and No. 8 Florida State (5-0) made quick work of Florida A&M (1-3) on Wednesday night as it only took the Seminoles 65 minutes to post a 9-0 victory in five innings over the Rattlers.
Hanson (3-0) was efficient, striking out nine of the 14 batters she faced, giving up just one hit and one walk as the redshirt senior made her JoAnne Graf Field debut.
“I’m loving the energy out of this team right now,” said FSU head coach Lonni Alameda. “The kids enjoy each other and have fun together and it is really cool to see that displayed on the field. Excited for the postseason feel for the games this weekend against Minnesota and Michigan and looking forward to how we handle veteran teams that are experienced and how we make adjustments from game to game.”
The Noles opened the scoring straight away in the bottom of the first as walks to Morgan Klaevemann and Carsyn Gordon, along with Jessie Warren reaching on an error, set the stage for Zoe Casas to empty them with a bases-clearing triple to left center. Sydney Sherrill added an RBI single to round out the scoring at 4-0 after the first inning.
Korina Rosario reached on a catcher’s interference to start the FSU second inning and moved to second with a stolen base and over to third on a sacrifice bunt by Klaevemann. Warren made it a 5-0 game one batter later with a sacrifice fly to center.
Anna Shelnutt led off the Seminole fourth inning with a lined shot back up the middle and she was pinch-run for at first by Deja Bush. Bush easily scored on Rosario’s triple to right center, the second triple of the season for the senior outfielder.
The inning continued with a bunt single by Klaevemann and Warren added two more RBI with a double off the wall in left to give her 214 RBI for her career, just two shy of the FSU record of 216 RBI set by Maddie O’Brien (2012-15). Warren came into score later in the inning on a double down the right field line by Cali Harrod for the 9-0 final score.
Savanna Copeland made her first career pitching appearance, tossing a perfect fifth inning for the Seminoles, recording a strikeout to the first batter she faced.
The Seminoles will host the 2018 ACC/Big Ten Softball Challenge on February 16-18 on JoAnne Graf Field. In the third year of the annual cross-conference challenge, No. 14 Minnesota (5-0) and No. 20 Michigan (3-2) will come to Tallahassee representing the Big Ten, while Florida State and RV Notre Dame (3-2) will be the ACC member schools.
Each team will play four games over the weekend, with two each (one home/one away) versus each school from the other conference. Admission is free for all games over the weekend, with action starting at 4:00 p.m. on Friday and 10:00 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. Live stats for all games will be available on Seminoles.com and each Florida State game on the weekend will have a live radio broadcast on Shoutcast.com, with the games on Friday and Saturday airing live on ACC Network Extra.
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