April 23, 2009
BEVERLY, Mass. - The Endicott College softball team combined to hit seven homeruns in two halves of a double-header sweep over Curry College on Thursday afternoon by scores of 9-5 and 9-6. The Gulls improve to 31-4 overall and a league-best 21-1 in The Commonwealth Coast Conference while Curry drops to 25-13 overall and 16-6 in the TCCC. Endicott's Merry MacDonald (Braintree, Mass.) went 4-for-7 on the day including three homeruns and four RBI.
The first game of the day was a continuation of a rain delayed game from yesterday. The Gulls had just tied the game at 2-2 on a Sarah Spaziano (Norton, Mass.) homerun before the umpires called the game due the weather and the worsening field conditions. Ashley Wright (Merrimack, N.H.) led off the day with a single that glanced off pitcher Amanda Peters (East Bridgewater, Mass.) and stayed in the infield but allowed Wright to reach. Wright was sacrificed over to second base and would come around to score when TCCC Player of the Week Jenna Lazar (Milton, Mass.) singled up the middle to give the Gulls an early 3-2 lead.
Curry would go quietly in the third inning after back-to-back strikeouts and a lineout followed a lead-off walk by Lauren Tobey (Lynn, Mass.). MacDonald would lead off the Endicott half of the third with her first homerun of the day, a towering shot to the opposite field that bounced off the rock façade and pushed Endicott to a 4-2 lead.
Endicott would strike again an inning later as Wright led off the inning with a single through the left side. Wright was sacrificed over again and moved to third on a bunt single by Megan Downey (Ballston Lake, N.Y.) who then caught the Colonels napping and advanced over to second. Lazar would turn a suicide-squeeze into a bunt single as she drove in her second run of the game. Casey Shanley (Billerica, Mass.) would bat next and clear the bases, driving in two runs and advancing to third on the throw home. The Gulls would add two more in the inning on RBI singles by Meghan Sargent (Salisbury, Mass.) and Spaziano, giving Endicott a 9-2 edge.
Curry would strike back in the fifth however as the Colonels chased Endicott's Jenna Bortolotti (Milton, Mass.) from the game. The Colonels would load the bases before an out was recorded and Peters would work a walk to drive in a run for Curry. The Gulls would get their first out of the inning on a play at the plate as Spaziano's throw sailed high but Sargent snagged it out of the air and kept her foot on the plate, saving a pair of runs. Bortolotti would strike out the next batter but Kelsey Bryant (South Portland, Maine) would hit an RBI single to left field to make it a 9-4 game. Kristen Jackman (Stoughton, Mass.) would single down the left field line, driving in another run, and Bortolotti would be replaced by Jackie Collier (Swampscott, Mass.) with the bases still loaded. Collier would induce a groundball to short that would end the inning, leaving the Gulls holding onto a 9-5 lead.
Both bullpens would turn down the offense as neither Collier nor Katie O'Neill (Braintree, Mass.) would give up a hit through the final two innings. Collier would pick up her first save of the season, going 2.1 innings and giving up no hits and only one walk. O'Neill would go the final two innings, giving up only one walk while striking out two.
Jenna Bortolotti pitched well enough to earn her 15th win of the season by going 4.2 innings, striking out six, walking four, and giving up five earned runs on eight hits. The Gulls were led by Lazar, Shanley, MacDonald, and Spaziano who each drove in two runs apiece.
Amanda Peters suffered the defeat for Curry, dropping to 8-5 this season. Peters went four innings while giving up nine earned runs on twelve hits. The Colonels were led by Jessica Coyle's (Weymouth, Mass.) two-run homerun as well as matching 2-for-4 performances with an RBI from Jackman and Bryant.
In game two, Collier would march back out there for her scheduled start and gave up three hits in the first inning but avoided any damage. In the Endicott half of the first, Lazar would lead-off with a strikeout but was followed by back-to-back homeruns by Shanley and MacDonald. Meghan Sargent would pop-out to second base but Hayley Hovhanessian (Farmington, Conn.) would hit the Gulls' third homerun of the inning to left field, giving Endicott an early 3-0 advantage.
Curry would get one back in the second as Sara Girard (Turners Falls, Mass.) led off the inning with a triple and later scored on a Jackman single to centerfield, slicing into the 3-0 deficit to make it a 3-1 game.
After a quiet second from the Gulls, Curry would take a 4-3 lead as the Colonels showed a little of their own power when Amanda Peters blasted a two-run homerun to centerfield to knot the game at three. Curry would take the lead on an RBI single by Janelle Mayo (Worcester, Mass.) that scored Girard, her second run scored of the game.
Endicott would not trail for long as Jenna Lazar would score on a Meghan Sargent single up the middle to tie the game at four in the bottom of the third.
The Gulls tacked on three more in the fourth when Sarah Spaziano led off with a homerun to left-center field to score the first run. Endicott added two more on a two-run error by the second baseman, allowing Downey and Katherine McGann (Topsfield, Mass.) to score, and left Endicott with the 7-4 lead.
McGann would drive in a run in the fifth to pad the Endicott lead to 8-4 which proved to be vital. Curry added two more runs in their half of the sixth as Tobey hit an RBI single to center field that drove in a pair. The Colonels would load the bases in the inning but could not push a run across as Collier forced a pair of groundouts by Curry to end the inning.
Merry MacDonald would drive the proverbial "nail in the coffin" for the Colonels as she clobbered her third homerun of the day to center field, giving the Gulls the 9-6 win. Collier would give up only one hit in the seventh but earned her 14th win of the season by throwing the complete game despite giving up 15 hits and six runs (four earned) while striking out four.
Eight of the nine starters for Endicott had a hit while six different players drove in at least one run. MacDonald went 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI and two homeruns while Shanley, and Spaziano also homered for the Gulls.
Curry's Janelle Mayo took the loss for the Colonels as she went five innings, giving up eight runs on 13 hits and struck out 6. Six Curry players registered two hits as the entire starting nine had at least one hit in the game. Lauren Tobey led Curry going 2-for-4 with two RBI while Amanda Peters went 1-for-4 with two RBI as well.
The Blue and Green return to action on Friday when they host Salve Regina University in a battle of the top two teams in the TCCC at 3:00 p.m. in a double-header. Game one of the double-header will be webcast on Endicott's All-Access channel starting at 2:55 p.m. Curry will travel to Western New England College for a TCCC double-header scheduled for 2:00 p.m.
