Missouri's Tori Finucane tossed a one-hit shutout to earn her 19th win of the season.
BATON ROUGE, LA. -- Three home runs provided the offense, and Tori Finucane pitched perhaps her finest outing of the season as No. 11 Missouri (39-13) opened the postseason with a resounding 9-0 shutout win in six innings against Mississippi State (35-19) in the first game of the 2015 SEC Tournament.
Finucane allowed just one hit in 6.0 innings to improve to 19-8 on the season, and she got plenty of help from her teammates as Corrin Genovese, Kelsea Roth and Kirsten Mack all homered to fuel a nine-hit Tigers attack. Genovese opened scoring in the bottom of the second as she turned on a 2-1 pitch for a homer to left field, her fourth round-tripper of the season (15th career), which made it 1-0.
After a bases-loaded walk to Natalie Fleming made it 2-0 Tigers in the fourth, Roth dealt the death blow in the fifth,when she stung a towering fly ball that cleared the left field wall with the bases loaded for her 12th home run of the season (second grand slam in 2015). It was her 43rd-career round-tripper, moving her to within four of the Mizzou career home run record of 47 set by Jen Bruck (2005-08).
Mack put the game on ice with a three-run shot down the left field line in the bottom of the sixth that made it 9-0 and ended the game as the run-rule was invoked. The home run was Mack's 14th of the season and pushed her into a tie for the team lead.
Finucane threw only 79 pitches and struck out two Bulldogs while walking two for her third shutout of the season.