Pence Tosses Shutout in Panthers First Win of 2017


The Florida Tech softball team bounced back from two losses on Friday, with an early morning 5-0 win over the Nova Southeastern Sharks in the Florida Tech Marriott First Pitch Classic.

Panthers pitcher Rachel Pence, who suffered a rare lopsided loss on Friday, looked more like herself on Saturday, giving up just three hits in a complete-game shutout. She struck out five and didn’t walk a batter.

FIT got on the board in the bottom of the first, with Krista Patterson drawing a leadoff walk and moving to second on an illegal pitch out of the hand of Megan Granitto. Two outs later, Vanessa Rubio singled Patterson home and gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead.

The Panthers added to their lead, when Julianna Goldberg took Granitto deep and out for her first home run of the season. Audrey Gangloff followed her, hitting a grounder to third that was misplayed, allowing her to go all the way to third. That ended the day for Granitto, who was relieved by Erica Winter.

The Sharks committed another error on a ball hit back to the mound by Kaitlin Buchholz, allowing Gangloff to score and upping the lead to 3-0. A ground out by Karina Suicava moved Buchholz to second and she later stole third. Buchholz later scored in an error by the Sharks catcher, giving the Panthers a 4-0 lead. It was the fourth error of the inning for Nova Southeastern.

The final run of the day came in the fifth inning. Hailey Leonard was hit by a pitch to start the frame and stole second base. She moved to third on a grounder by Rubio and came home on an RBI single by Makayla Palmer.

For more info: Nova Southeastern @ Florida Tech

The victory was the first of the season for Florida Tech and career win number 197 for Panthers head coach Val Silvestrini, who is in her eighth season at the helm.

The Panthers will look for their second straight win later today, at 4:30 p.m. The game will be played at Melbourne High School.


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