{"id":145484,"date":"2026-02-06T01:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T01:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145484\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T01:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T01:18:17","slug":"cats-drop-opener-in-tampa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145484\/","title":{"rendered":"Cats Drop Opener in Tampa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/jhwk4C_RF_OL (3).png\" alt=\"Kansas\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                Next Game:<\/p>\n<p>vs. Kansas<\/p>\n<p>2\/6\/2026 | 9 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                    Feb. 06 (Fri) \/ 9 a.m.&#13;\n                <\/p>\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sidearm-story-template-next-game-opponent-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/jhwk4C_RF_OL (3).png\" alt=\"Kansas\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                        vs.\u00a0Kansas&#13;\n                    <\/p>\n<p>                    <a class=\"sidearm-story-template-next-game-details-history\" href=\"https:\/\/bcuathletics.com\/sports\/softball\/opponent-history\/kansas\/118\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">History <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                             &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    TAMPA, Fla.\u00a0\u2013 Bethune-Cookman Softball fell in the first game in Tampa 10-1 to the Illinois State Red Birds Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Header How it Happened\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/How_it_Happened.png\" style=\"display: inline-block;\" width=\"300\"\/><br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nIllinois State 10, B-CU 0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nFreshman <a href=\"https:\/\/bcuathletics.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/mia-gonzalez\/11318\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"11318\" target=\"_blank\">Mia Gonzalez<\/a> was called upon to start game one of the season for Bethune-Cookman (0-1). She began her college career by pitching a scoreless inning against Illinois State (1-0), finishing with two strikeouts and no hits allowed.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom of the first saw the Wildcats get base via hit by pitch and a walk but were unable to score the runners.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Birds began the second inning with their fist hit and were able to get on the board one\u00a0batter later. Hannah Meshnick hit her first home run of the season to right-center field, giving Illinois State a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n<p>The Wildcats were able to load the bases in the bottom of the frame, with <a href=\"https:\/\/bcuathletics.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/aysiah-gonzalez\/11051\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"11051\" target=\"_blank\">Aysiah Gonzalez<\/a> recording B-CU&#8217;s first hit of the season. But Hannah Meshnick was able to record a foul out and a strikeout to eliminate the threat.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Birds then rode the momentum to the tune of a four-run inning in the third, taking a 6-0 lead. The Wildcats recorded two errors in the inning.<\/p>\n<p>B-CU grabbed their first run of the season in the bottom half, as <a href=\"https:\/\/bcuathletics.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/arianna-reynolds\/11323\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"11323\" target=\"_blank\">Arianna Reynolds<\/a> drove in <a href=\"https:\/\/bcuathletics.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/janel-morrisey\/11320\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"11320\" target=\"_blank\">Janel Morrisey<\/a> to cut the deficit to five.<\/p>\n<p>But the Wildcats could not break through the rest of the game, while the Red Birds continued to add to their lead.<\/p>\n<p>Bethune-Cookman finished the game with six hits while the Red Birds had 12.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Up Next In-Story Header\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Up_Next.jpg\" style=\"display: inline-block;\" width=\"300\"\/><\/p>\n<p>B-CU will be back in action tomorrow morning against the Kanas Jayhawks at 9 a.m. They will then turn their attention to Michigan at 12:30.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Follow the Wildcats In-Story Header\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Follow_Wildcats.jpg\" style=\"display: inline-block;\" width=\"300\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Follow Bethune-Cookman Softball on X\/Twitter (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bcusoftball\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@BCUSoftball<\/a>) and Instagram (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bcusoftball\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@BCUSoftball<\/a>) for all of the latest news and updates. For all Bethune-Cookman Athletics news, follow us on Twitter (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/bcuathletics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@BCUAthletics<\/a>), Instagram (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bcu_athletics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@BCU_Athletics<\/a>) and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bcuathletics.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BCUathletics.com<\/a>.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; &#13; Next Game: vs. Kansas 2\/6\/2026 | 9 a.m. &#13; Feb. 06 (Fri) \/ 9 a.m.&#13;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-145484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}