Women’s softball clinches SUNYAC regular season title with weekend wins
via photo editor Kate Rodgers
The Geneseo’s women’s softball team won three of the four games they played this past weekend, including back-to-back double headers at Cortland and Oswego on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Their first win of the weekend against Cortland assured the regular season SUNYAC title, giving them the top seed in the SUNYAC regular season standings and the right to host this week’s SUNYAC tournament.
The Knights decisively won their first game 8-3 against Cortland on Friday morning. While the Red Dragons took a 1-0 lead after the first inning, Geneseo sophomore Rebecca Schwartzman’s grand slam at the top of the second gave the Knights a lead they held for the rest of the game, along with a SUNYAC regular season title for the second year in a row.
Cortland took the second game of the double header, striking first in the bottom of the third with two runs on a hit and a walk. But Geneseo answered this call in the sixth inning, cutting Cortland’s lead in half when first year Kaitlyn Schmitz’s double sent fellow first year Leah VanDerwarker to home. The Red Dragons countered back with another three runs in the bottom of the sixth, establishing a 5-1 lead which they would hold for the rest of the game.
On Saturday, Geneseo won both games against Oswego in extra innings. In the first game, Geneseo scored their first run in the top of the first inning when first year Audrey Minton’s single sent VanDerwarker home yet again. Oswego responded with one run in the bottom of the inning to tie the game, then took a big lead in the bottom of the third with six runs scored. The Knights played defensively for the rest of the game, holding the Lakers to seven runs, and slowly chipped away at their lead. Geneseo scored a run in the fourth when VanDerwarker got an RBI on a fly-ball out, which Schmitz followed up with a solo home run the next inning. The Knights capitalized on an error by Oswego to gain a run, and then added another run on a single from Rebecca Schwartz in the top of the sixth.
Entering the seventh inning, Geneseo was down by only two runs. Sophomore Lauren Kersch sent a double to left field that brought in one run, then senior Katherine Hayes hit to bring Kersch home, tying the game and forcing extra innings. Neither team was able to score in the eighth inning, but a double from VanDerwarker drove senior Phoebe Elardo in for a run to push the Knights ahead in the top of the ninth. Junior pitcher Elizabeth Eberhardt locked in the win by shutting down Oswego’s final offensive effort, keeping the score at 8-7 Knights.
Geneseo held the lead in their final game of the weekend until the seventh inning, scoring one run in each of the second, third, fourth, and sixth innings while keeping Oswego off the board. The Lakers came back late in the game, racking up four runs in the bottom of the seventh to push the game into extra innings. First year player Olivia Fazio led off the Knights’ effort in the top of the eighth, hitting a single and scoring on Hayes’s single to center field. Shwartz hit another run after the Knights took advantage of an error by Oswego, and while the Lakers scored one run in the bottom of the eighth, Eberhardt shut down their offense with the tying run on first to give the Knights a 6-5 win, their third of the weekend and thirtieth of the season.
As the SUNYAC regular season top seed, the Knights will be hosting the SUNYAC tournament this week, playing their first game against SUNY Plattsburgh at 9 a.m. on Thursday, May 5.