Courtesy of Williams Sports Information
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA — Needing just one win to clinch its first NESCAC Championship berth since 2006, the Amherst softball team dropped a pair of games to archrival Williams College to fall to 6-6 in the conference and 14-16 overall on the season.
Down to its last out in game one, the Ephs (19-5-1, 7-5 NESCAC West) rallied for a 5-4 win against the Lord Jeffs, before rolling to a 10-0, 5-inning victory in the nightcap to clinch the Little Three title and an 11th-straight berth in the NESCAC Championship.
Trailing 3-0 early in first game, Amherst rallied to tie it at three in the second inning. With one out and one on, senior Katie Kervick (Windsor Locks, CT) blasted a big two-run homer to center, trimming the visitor's deficit to one. Fellow senior Jillian Masi (Stamford, CT) later ripped a two-out single to left, setting the plate for first-year Carolyn Miller (Leominster, MA), who promptly doubled to right to deadlock the game.
The score remained 3-3 until the top of the seventh inning, when Masi drew a lead-off walk from Eph hurler Mary Beth Daub. Miller would then lay down a sacrifice bunt to move Masi to second, before a wild pitch allowed her to take third. After a walk, sophomore Reilly Horan (Darien, CT) looped a single into center field plating Amherst's go-ahead run. The Ephs escaped further damage when first-year Ally Ensor tracked down Lord Jeff junior catcher Annemarie Iker's (Mill Valley, CA) deep fly to left on the warning track.
Up 4-3 heading into the final frame, Amherst hurler Theresa Kelley (Los Angeles, CA) retired the first batter of the bottom of the seventh, but Williams got some life when an error put senior Carly Ameen on base. Fellow senior Caitlyn Cain then drew a walk to put runners on first and second, but first-year Theresa Legan flew out to center to put the Ephs down to their last out.
Hoping to keep things alive, junior Kaitlin Dinet lined the first pitch she saw from Kelley into the gap in left-center field. Ameen easily came around to score the game-tying run, before Cain slid home to secure the walk-off victory.
Daub earned the win, tossing all seven frames and allowing seven hits and three walks while striking out two. Kelley took the hard-luck loss, allowing seven hits while walking two over six and two -thirds innings.
With Williams' game one triumph knotting the weekend's three game set, game two turned into a winner-take-all contest and the Ephs wasted no time getting the jump on their rivals with four runs in the bottom of the first. Cain, who was 3-for-3 in the nightcap and 5-for-7 on the day, ignited the rally with a single up the middle. Legan then sacrificed her to second before Dinet was hit by a pitch. A fielder's choice left runners on first and second with two outs, but sophomore Cedar Blazek singled through the left side to load the bases.
Amherst starter Christina Anderson (Port St. Lucie, FL) then hit Graebner to force in the game's first run, before the Ephs Amanda Correnti followed with a line drive single to center that scored two. Sophomore Merrilee Weston later looped an RBI-single to right center that scored Graebner to make it 4-0.
Looking to seize control, Williams put the game out of reach with a six-run third inning. Blazek led off the frame with her team-leading sixth home run of the season, a solo shot to left field. Kelley would relieve Anderson, but walked the first batter she faced before surrendering a two-run homer to Correnti. Weston later beat out a roller to third before Ameen lined a single to center. Amherst's Arielle Doering (Branchburg, NJ) entered the game with hopes of slowing the surging Ephs, but she was greeted with an RBI-single from Cain that made it 8-0. Williams capped off the decisive inning with a pair of RBI-groundouts that extended the margin to 10.
From there, sophomore starter Megan Casey put the wraps on an impressive performance in which she tossed all five innings and allowed just two hits, while striking out three. Dinet, Blazek, Correnti and Weston all had two base-knocks in the game, with Correnti going 2-for-3 with a game-high four RBI.
Miller and Kervick notched the Lord Jeffs' lone hits, with Anderson taking the loss from the circle, after surrendering five runs on seven hits in two innings of work.
GAME 1 BOX SCORE
GAME 2 BOX SCORE
