Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 Game One Box Score | Game Two Box Score
RIVERDALE, NY – On Saturday afternoon, the Manhattan College softball team engaged in a pair of pitchers' duels with Sacred Heart at Gaelic Park. After the Pioneers (7-16) took the opener 1-0, Elena Bowman (San Mateo, CA) hit a solo home run in the fifth inning of game two to account for the margin of victory in a 3-2 Manhattan (11-8) win.
After Sacred Heart took a 2-0 lead on McKenna Wiegand's two-run single in the second inning of game two, the Jaspers evened the score with a pair in the bottom of the third. Emily Cutler (Bloomingdale, NJ) drew a leadoff walk and Shannon Puthe (Mullica Hill, NJ), who was batting in the leadoff spot for the first time this season, followed with a triple to the wall in center field. With one down, Briana Matazinsky (Valley Falls, NY) lifted a sacrifice fly to center that tied the game.
Manhattan then took the lead on Bowman's fifth home run of the year, a blast to deep center field, in the fifth. That was all the offense Danielle Gabriel (Island Heights, NJ) would need, as she worked around a pair of base runners in the sixth and a two-out single in the seventh to finish off the 3-2 triumph.
Gabriel (2-1), who entered with nobody out in the second, allowed three hits and one walk while striking out six in six shutout innings. Stephanie Kristo (San Jose, CA) got the start and yielded two runs on three hits and two walks in an inning-plus. Offensively, the Jaspers were held to just three hits—Bowman's homer, Puthe's triple and a Matazinsky double.
Wiegand finished 2-for-4 with two RBIs for the Pioneers. Starting pitcher Kristen McCann went two innings. She was charged with two runs on one hit, struck out four and walked four. Emily Orosco (2-3) took the loss after surrendering one run on two hits and striking out seven over four innings of work.
In the first game, Matazinsky came up on the wrong end of a 1-0 decision. She recorded a career-high 11 strikeouts (the most by a Manhattan pitcher since Kelsi Redding struck out 14 against Green Bay on March 21, 2013), but the Jasper offense was only able to muster two hits off the Pioneers' Jamie Carlson (3-6), who had 12 strikeouts of her own.
Sacred Heart scored the game's only run in the top of the fifth, when Hailey Desrosiers sent a one-out double to center field and Stephanie Appelberg followed with an RBI single up the middle. Manhattan put runners on first and second with one out in the bottom of the sixth, but Carlson got out of the inning with a strikeout and a groundout. She then retired the Jaspers in order in the seventh to complete the two-hit shutout. Carlson also walked three.
Matazinsky suffered her second 1-0 loss this season. She allowed nine hits and two walks in a complete game effort. Manhattan's only two hits were a Matazinsky single and a Jenn Vazquez (Fairfield, CT) double.
Victoria D'Addario and Kelyn Fillmore both went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Pioneers. Desrosiers was 1-for-4 with a run scored, while Appelberg ended up 1-for-2 with an RBI.
The Jaspers conclude their four-game homestand on Wednesday with a single contest against Stony Brook (10-15-1) at 2 p.m. It will be Manhattan's final game before the start of Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) play next weekend.
