The Hamilton College softball team used a six-run fifth inning to salvage a split with Middlebury College in a NESCAC West Division doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at Utica College’s Greenman Field.
Game one box score | Game two box score
After the Panthers won the opener 9-1 in five innings, the Continentals (9-12, 4-3 NESCAC West) bounced back with a 6-3 victory in game two. Hamilton climbed out of a 2-0 hole with six fifth-inning runs, capitalizing on four walks and a hit batter along with a pair of extra-base hits.
Daphne Assimakopoulos ’17 bookended the Continental rally, leading off with her second career home run and drawing a bases-loaded walk later in the inning. Following her home run, walks to Kelly Leonard ’15 and Olivia Gozdz ’16 put the tying and go-ahead runs on base with two outs. Ellie Kiernan ’15 doubled to center field to tie the game and Gozdz scored the winning run on a wild pitch. A Panther error allowed the fourth run of the inning to score and Hamilton closed out the scoring when Monique St. Jarre ’15 was hit by a bases-loaded pitch.
The Panthers (12-6, 3-3) put a pair of runners on base in each of their last two at bats but Zoe Singer ’18 allowed only one run in finishing her first collegiate complete-game victory.
Singer worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the sixth without giving up a run. She sealed the win by inducing an infield pop-up and a ground ball with the tying run on deck after Middlebury had pushed across a seventh-inning run.
Kelsey Martel ’15 led off the Panther seventh with a double. Two batters later, Siobhan O’Sullivan ’17 singled home a run to pull Middlebury to within 6-3 before Singer picked up the last two outs to improve to 2-1 on the season.
Assimakopoulos had two of Hamilton’s four hits.
O’Sullivan and Carlyn Vachow ’16 both had two hits for the Panthers. O’Sullivan scored the game’s first run, coming home on a single by Kat Maehr ’16 after leading off the first with a double. Middlebury added to its lead in the fourth when Vachow beat out an infield single with one out, stole second and scored on a double to left by Hye-Jin Kim ‘17.
In the opener, Middlebury broke open a tie game with eight runs over the fourth and fifth innings. The Panthers went ahead for good on a two-run home run by Sarah Freyre ’17 in the top of the fourth, then tacked on six runs in the next inning thanks to six hits and three Hamilton errors.
The big blow for Middlebury was a bases-loaded double by Vachow that gave the Panthers an 8-1 lead. A one-out double by Kati Dacczkowski and a single by O’Sullivan were followed by a pair of Hamilton errors and an infield single by Freyre that brought home two runs and left the bases loaded for Vachow. Following her three-run double to left center, she scored on a wild pitch to close out the scoring.
Freyre and Vachow finished with two hits, two runs scored and three runs batted in apiece. Maehr added two hits and scored twice.
Vachow scored the game’s first run, leading off the second with a single through the left side and scoring on a ground ball by Erin Giles ’17 after stealing second and moving to third on a ground ball out.
The Continentals tied the score an inning later. Leonard singled up the middle and took second, third and home on three straight wild pitches.
The teams conclude their weekend series on Sunday, April 12, with a noon game at Hamilton's Ferguson Field (the game was originally scheduled for 11 a.m.).
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