The 9th ranked Missouri Tigers softball team won a non-conference game over Northern Iowa 3-1 to improve to 31-6 on the season and extend their home winning streak to 22 consecutive games.
The Panthers jumped ahead on a first inning home run by designated player Laura Turner. Missouri evened things up in the second on an RBI double by Mackenzie Sykes. Nicole Hudson gave the Tigers the lead with a sacrifice fly to right field in the third and added an insurance run by in the fourth inning, drawing four walks.
Redshirt junior Chelsea Thomas has been named as one of 25 finalists for the 2012 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, as announced Wednesday afternoon by the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) of America. This is the second straight year she has been in the final 25, and last year Thomas was one of the three remaining finalists to win the award.
This season, Thomas is 16-4 with a 0.97 earned run average in 22 appearances. She has struck out 161 batters and walked only 33 in 115.0 innings pitched, while opponents are hitting only .155 off her. Her earned run average, strikeouts per seven innings total (9.80), hits allowed per seven innings (3.71) and shutouts (9) all rank in the top-seven in all of NCAA Division I softball.