The Eastern University softball team kicked off the 2010 season with a pair of close calls against St. Vincent College. The Eagles suffered two 2-3 losses at the hands of the Bearcats from Latrobe, Pa.
After spending their entire pre-season inside and arriving a day late due to canceled flights, the Eagles were finally able to play outside. Maggie McGowan took the ball to start the 2010 season. The sophomore pitcher from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania took a shut out through the 5th inning. The Eastern defense was solid behind her. Jaimie Schwartz mde the defensive highlight of the opener with a diving catch in left field.
A trio of hard hit balls and a walk gave the Bearcats a 3-1 lead in the sixth. McGowan stopped the bleeding and junior Kristine Rosko threw a scoreless 7th to keep the Eagles within a run.
The Eagles plated a run in the bottom of the sixth to cut the lead in half. Junior Kate Phelan reached on an error to start the inning. After a passed ball and heads up base running by Phelan, junior Amy Bellows drove in Phelan to pull Coach Stroop's side to within 3-2.
Re-energized after Rosko's performance, the Eastern rallied late off of back to back singles by Valerie Heffline and Theresa Esposito. Sophomore catcher Samantha Terenzoni drew a walk to juice the bases, but the Eagles could not find a way to even up the score.
The second game was much of the same for the Eagles as freshman pitcher, Janelle Fair took to the mound for her collegiate debut. Fair took a no-hitter into the sixth but the offense struggled once again to string something together to support the young righty.
After seven scoreless innings, the international tie-breaker rule went into effect. Jaclyn Gangemi started on second for the Eagles in the top of the eighth. Carly Rawlings advanced Gangemi to third and eventually scored on a Heffline single. The Bearcats evened the score at one run a piece on a suicide squeeze in the bottom of the frame. Eastern scored again in the ninth when McGowan singled in Phelan.
Unfortunately, the scoring would stop there for the Eagles as the Bearcats came back to score two runs off of fielders choice plays in the bottom of the ninth to seal the victory.
"We did some good things and we did some bad things today," remarked Coach Stroop following the game. "We hit the ball for the most part but the thing that really pulled us down was our inability to lay down sacrifice bunts and string enough hits together to build a rally. We left too many people on base."
"Overall though I was very pleased," said Stroop. "Our pitching was excellent today and our defense made plays behind them. Its a process and we'll learn from these two games and fix our mistakes and be ready to go on Wednesday."
The Eagles will face off for a third time against the Bearcats of St. Vincent at 11:00 AM on Wednesday, March 3. At 1:00 PM, Eastern takes on Grand Rapids Community College.
