Minnesota Scene: Big win, then big letdown for U softball team

The No. 13-rated Gophers softball team played two games Friday in the Citrus Classic in Orlando, beating Mississippi State 5-0 in the first game to improve to 15-1 — the best start in program history — but losing to James Madison 8-2 in the second.

Sara Groenewegen, a sophomore righthander, beat the Bulldogs (13-3) on a one-hitter. She only gave up a leadoff single in the second inning. Groenewegen struck out 14, tying a career high, and walked one.

Senior center fielder Erica Meyer was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and one RBI; designated player Hannah Granger was 3-for-3.

Freshman Kylie Stober started the second game and lasted only 1⅓ innings. She gave up a leadoff homer in the first inning and left with the bases loaded in the second. Junior reliever Nikki Anderson couldn't keep any of the three runners from scoring — two came home on a single, one on a hit batter with the bases loaded — as the Dukes (6-4) took a 4-2 lead.

The Gophers' two runs came in the second on Danielle Parlich's RBI triple and a fielder's choice.

The Gophers baseball team, after starting the season with seven losses in a row, won 3-0 over Florida Gulf Coast in Fort Myers, Fla.

Held to one hit through the first six innings, the Gophers loaded the bases in the seventh on singles by Matt Fiedler and Michael Handel — his second hit — and a walk. Matt Halloran drove in all three runners with a two-out single.

Junior Jess Herauf of the Gophers won the pentathlon at the Big Ten indoor track and field championships in Geneva, Ohio. She set a meet record with a score of 4,361 — that's 189 points more than last year, when she was the runner-up.

Senior Katie Murgic and junior Cami Gilson tied for fifth place in the pole vault.

In the men's meet, freshman Berkley Edwards, a running back in football who came out late for track, had the fourth-best time in the 60-yard preliminaries (6.78) to advance.

• Sophomore Daryl Turner of the Gophers took third place in the 100-yard butterfly in the Big Ten men's swimming and diving meet in Iowa City, Iowa. His time was 46.52 seconds. He also swam the first leg of Minnesota's 200 freestyle relay (1:18.97) which took seventh.

• Lynx forward Maya Moore scored 32 points, 11 rebounds and six steals but Shanxi, her team in China, lost 75-61 to Beijing in the first game of the Women's Chinese Basketball Association Finals.