The 10-0 Missouri Tigers will play five games in California this weekend. (Photo courtesy: Mizzou Athletics)
Paige Dale
Staff Writer
The No. 11-ranked University of Missouri softball team will spend the third weekend of the 2024 season in California, playing in the annual Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic at the Big League Dreams Complex in Cathedral City.
Missouri will play five games this weekend, two on Thursday, two on Friday, and a final game on Saturday. Mizzou’s opponents this weekend will be San Diego State, Wisconsin, Central Florida, Cal State Fullerton, and No. 22-ranked Baylor in the finale.
All five Tiger games this weekend will be streamed live on FloSoftball.
It’s been a fantastic start to the 2024 season for Mizzou. The Tigers are 10-0 — the first time the team has begun the season with 10 straight wins since 2009, when Missouri began the year 12-0 and went 50-12 on the year, before advancing to the Women’s College World Series.
After cracking the national polls last week, Mizzou moved up in all of them this week. The Tigers enter the third week of the season #11 in the USA Today/NFCA Coaches Poll, and #13 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Poll. Mizzou also was #8 and #11 in the Softball America and D1Softball polls, respectively.
MIZZOU 2024 MARY NUTTER SCHEDULE
- #11 Missouri vs. San Diego State, Thursday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. | Yankee Stadium
- #11 Missouri vs. Wisconsin, Thursday, Feb. 22 at 9:30 p.m. | Yankee Stadium
- #11 Missouri vs. Central Florida, Friday, Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m. | Fenway Park
- #11 Missouri vs. Cal State-Fullerton, Friday, Feb. 23 at 10 p.m. | Fenway Park
- #11 Missouri vs. #22 Baylor, Saturday, Feb. 24 at 10 p.m. | Wrigley Field
LAST TIME AT MARY NUTTER
- Missouri went 3-2 at the 2023 edition of the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic Feb. 23-25.
- The Tigers opened the Classic with back-to-back run-rule wins over Cal Poly (9-1) and BYU (11-3).
- Missouri then lost tight contests to Oregon State (3-2) and No. 22/24 Oregon (6-4) before run-ruling Long Beach State (9-0, six innings) to cap the tournament.
2024 TRACY BEARD COLLEGE CLASSIC RECAP
- Missouri continued its perfect opening to the 2024 season, reeling off five wins at the 2024 Tracy Beard College Classic to improve to 10-0.
- Cierra Harrison picked up her first career no-hitter in the opener with Texas A&M-Commerce (1-0).
- Missouri then edged South Dakota State, 4-3, in the first of two meetings over the Classic. Laurin Krings improved to 5-0 in 2024 with the win.
- Lilly Whitten posted her first career win in her first career start as a Tiger, leading Mizzou to a 7-1 win over South Dakota State.
- Missouri also posted double-digit wins over North Texas including an 11-2 run-rule win to conclude the tournament.
- Stefania Abruscato made her first career starts (4) over the tournament, batting .333 with five walks.
- Through two weeks, Alex Honnold is batting .355 (.581 slugging percentage, four multi-hit games) with eight RBI (two multi-RBI games). She notched a pair of doubles in Texas.
HARRISON IN THE CIRCLE
- Cierra Harrison led Mizzou in the circle at the Tracy Beard College Classic, registering a pair of wins including her first career no-hitter. She pitched 13.1 innings over North Texas’ tournament, allowing no runs and two hits with 12 strikeouts.
- Harrison opened the Classic with a 1-0 no-hitter over Texas A&M-Commerce. She posted her first career seven-inning shutout and matched a career-high eight strikeouts for the no-hitter.
- On the heels of her first career no-hitter, Harrison then allowed only two hits while striking out four over six innings in a 10-0 win over North Texas.
- Harrison then utilized one pitch to retire the lone North Texas batter she faced Sunday in the finale, securing the win for Mizzou.
- Harrison boasts a 4-0 mark with 13 strikeouts in 2024. She is limiting opposing batters to a .061 batting average.
- The Lee’s Summit, Mo., sophomore paces the NCAA with a 0.00 ERA over 21.1 innings and five appearances. She also leads the country with a hits allowed per seven innings rate of 1.31.
GALLY GETS IT
- Maddie Gallagher notched a career-best 4-for-4 day at the plate in the first game with North Texas on Saturday. She also chipped in a run and an RBI in the game.
- With four hits against UNT, Gallagher notched her 100th career collegiate hit.
- Gallagher finished the Tracy Beard College Classic, hitting .500 and paces the Tigers at the plate (.429) through two weeks.
OUR LEADOFF HITTER
- Jenna Laird chipped in a .455 weekend over the Tracy Beard College Classic, scoring eight times to go with four RBI and three steals.
- The senior from East Meadow, N.Y., extended her reached base streak to 10 games (four-game hitting streak).
- The Tigers leadoff hitter has scored in all 10 games this season, having totaled 15 runs thus far.
- She ranks 15th Nationally with 1.50 runs per game in 2024.
MADISON WALKER
- Freshman first baseman Madison Walker chipped in a .308 weekend in Denton, Texas, this past week.
- She notched her first career double, while adding two runs and an RBI at the Tracy Beard College Classic
- Walker concluded the tournament, with a career-best 2-for-3 in the finale with North Texas.
FIRST GRAND SALAMI
- Sophomore Katie Chester knocked her first career grand slam Sunday in Mizzou’s 11-2 run-rule win over North Texas.
- It marked the first Tigers grand slam since Kara Daly notched one on Feb. 23, 2023, against Cal Poly.
- The home run was Katie Chester’s second of the season (fifth in her career). She finished Sunday with a career-best four RBI, going 1-for-3 with a run.
- Chester, a Liberty, Mo., native, is batting .318 in 2024 with eight RBI and a .636 slugging percentage.
WHITTEN MAKES MIZZOU DEBUTS
- Lilly Whitten recorded her first collegiate win in her first collegiate start and appearance in a 7-1 victory over South Dakota State on Feb. 17.
- After redshirting in 2023, the Tunas, Missouri, native, finished her collegiate debut with a line of 6.0 innings pitched, allowing one run on six hits, and eight strikeouts for the win.
- Jayci Kruse made her first appearance of the 2024 season, and the fourth of her Mizzou career, collecting one strikeout over the final inning to secure the win.
ON THE DALY
- Junior third baseman Kara Daly is three hits away from 100 in her career as a Tiger. She’d be the second Mizzou player to reach the career threshold after Maddie Gallagher reached the milestone in Denton, Tex.
- Daly is currently hitting .300 in 2024 with a .600 slugging percentage, seven RBI, seven runs and two homers.
RUN-RULE WINS
- Mizzou picked up its third run-rule win of the season in the Tracy Beard College Classic finale with an 11-2 decision over host, North Texas.
- Missouri secured the win with a seven-run fourth that featured a grand slam from Katie Chester.
2023 RECAP
- Mizzou enters the 2024 season on the heels of its 16th-straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
- The Tigers finished the 2023 season with a 35-26 mark, including a 7-17 in SEC play. With its 2023 record, Missouri has registered 35 wins in four of the last five seasons (2020 COVID-19 shortened season was the only time the Tigers didn’t meet the threshold in that span).
- During the 2023 campaign, Missouri totaled 51 home runs, while logging 75 doubles to go with 310 runs as a team.
- On the dirt, Mizzou tallied a .978 fielding percentage. The clip ranks second in program history, after the Tigers’ surpassed their previous .976 fielding percentage from 2022.
Up Next: Missouri will play in its final early-season tournament next weekend, when it travels to Lincoln, Neb., to play in the Big Red Invitational, hosted by the University of Nebraska. In that event, Mizzou will play two games apiece against Nebraska and Wichita State.
The Tigers’ first home game will come the following weekend, when Mizzou begins SEC play with a home series against Auburn on March 8, 9, and 10.
Mizzou sports information contributed to this story.
