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#Mizzou Links: Softball hits the ground running, Corey Tate is hungry

Mizzou softball run ruled their first opponent in the SEC tournament while Mizzou basketball welcomes a famous Missouri local on to the coaching staff.

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Mizzou Network

What's On

Softball

MUTIGERS.COM Tori, Taters Take Tigers to 9-0 Triumph over Mississippi State

The only hit allowed by Finucane was a line drive off the glove of 3B Angela Randazzo in the fourth inning. Finucane threw only 79 pitches and struck out two Bulldogs while walking two for her third shutout of the season.

Missouri wins SEC Tournament opener behind home runs, Finucane's one-hitter - Columbia Daily Tribune

An even better sign for Missouri was that Tori Finucane tossed a complete-game one-hitter. Prior to Wednesday, Finucane had allowed 10 runs – seven earned -- in the 9 2/3 innings she’d pitched since injuring her right latissimus dorsum, a back muscle, in an April 22 game against Iowa.

Mizzou softball crushes MSU in SEC tourney : Dave Matter

For Wednesday's first-round game, Missouri coach Ehren Earleywine made a surprising choice of sophomore pitcher Tori Finucane (19-8), who had been hobbled by some injuries the last two weeks. She allowed just one hit in six innings and faced only two hitters over the minimum.

"The key was waking up today and seeing how she felt," Earleywine said on SEC Network after the game. "Yesterday she didn’t feel great but she felt better than she did the day before. We just kept making these baby steps with her health. This morning she woke up, threw a few pitches in the bullpen and gave me the two thumbs up. So, we gave her the start."

Corey Tate

MUTIGERS.COM Former Tiger Tate Joins Anderson's Mizzou Staff

"I plan to extensively help with Coach Anderson's plans for player development," Tate said. "I've been blessed to be coaching for 15 years now. I trust my understanding of game situations and hope to help our program make immediate improvements. Lastly, working with the many great people involved in youth basketball around the Midwest will be a pleasure of mine. Keeping great future Mizzou student-athletes close to home is a priority."

Corey Tate starved to revive Mizzou basketball : Dave Matter

"I’m just ready to go to work," Tate said Wednesday in a phone interview. "I’m excited to come back home, but I’m just hungry. I’m in starvation mode." "It means the world to me," he added. "First of all that someone game me the opportunity to come back home and help the youth, these young guys, it means a lot. It means that I’ve been doing something right."

It's official: Tate returning to Missouri as assistant coach - Columbia Daily Tribune | Steve Walentik

Tate’s resume doesn’t just include work in the junior college ranks. The St. Louis native and Pattonville High School graduate has worked in the offseason in the St. Louis Eagles program for which he once played. He’s coached several of the state’s best college prospects in the Nike EYBL circuit, among them are Chaminade standouts Jayson Tatum and Tyler Cook and Hazelwood Central’s Xavier Sneed, all regarded as top-100 recruits the 2016 class.

Football Scraps

2015 SEC Spring Camp Wrap: New faces in the East - CBSSports.com

MISSOURI: Nothing's changing. Or not much, anyway. What suddenly seems like the SEC's most consistent program outside of Tuscaloosa let reporters watch more of spring camp than most of the league, and what they saw was more of the same: progression (if not perfection) from Maty Mauk, a new set of quality defensive linemen (keep a particular eye out for the Harold Brantley-Josh Augusta-Ricky Hatley rotation at defensive tackle after Hatley's massive spring), another strong, versatile offensive line built around 17th-year senior center Evan Boehm.

The corners look like a particular strength -- spring standout Aarion Penton could make an All-SEC challenge. The one true worry for Gary Pinkel has to be the wide receiving unit, where they're (remarkably) replacing their top three receivers for the second straight season. Sophomore J'Mon Moore looks like a potential breakout candidate, but the depth of the past two seasons may not be there. But of course, this is Missouri -- Pinkel will have an answer of some sort. Right?

What Rebuilding a Program Looks Like - Team Speed Kills

If Arkansas doesn't take as large a step forward this year as it did from 2013-14, don't write it off as Bielema hitting some kind of ceiling. Mullen didn't hit one when his nine-win 2010 team fell to 7-6 in his third year. People focus so much on the successful, quick rebuilds at talent factories like Nick Saban's at Alabama or Gus Malzahn's at Auburn that it can be easy to lose sight of how they work for football's middle class.