NAPLES, FL – The Wilmington College softball team kicked off their eight-game spring break trip with a pair of losses Sunday. The Fightin' Quakers fell to SUNY- Brockport, 5-1, in the first game, and then to UMass-Dartmouth, 7-5, in extra innings.
HOW IT HAPPENED: BROCKPORT 5, WILMINGTON 1
- Freshman Mariyah Burkhardt (Springfield, OH/Kenton Ridge) had Wilmington's lone RBI, a one-out double in the top of the first inning.
- It was the third straight game, all defeats, the Fightin' Quakers had scored first.
- A two-out error in the fourth enabled the Brockport inning to continue, and it cashed in the extra opportunities with back-to-back singles to take the 2-1 lead.
- The Golden Eagles added three insurance runs in the seventh inning.
- Wilmington was 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
- Junior Savannah Hooper (Leesburg, OH/Wilmington) finished 2-for-4 with a run scored and stolen base.
- Senior Kerrie Trautman (Hartville, OH/Field) and freshman Micalah Hensley (Houston, OH/Houston) each went 2-for-3 in the game.
- Senior Becca Carpenter, 0-2, (South Charleston, OH/Southeastern) allowed five runs (three earned) on eight hits in five innings of work.
HOW IT HAPPENED: UMASS-DARTMOUTH 7, WILMINGTON 5
- The Corsairs tallied two runs in the top of the eighth inning to secure the extra inning victory. It was Wilmington's second extra-inning loss this season.
- UMass-Dartmouth, a NCAA tournament team last season, took the lead with four runs in the top of the third inning.
- Carpenter got Wilmington on the board with a two-out single, scoring Savannah Hooper, and junior Chandler Fields (Delaware, OH/Rutherford B. Hayes) brought home another run with a two-out double. Fields finished 3-for-3 with an RBI and a walk.
- Freshman Grace Yoder (Springboro, OH/Springboro) brought home two runs with a double in the fourth inning. She was 3-for-5 with two RBI and a run scored.
- Dartmouth took the lead with a run in the seventh inning, but freshman KenDahl Bowles (Middletown, OH/Madison) recorded a two-out double to send the game into extra innings.
- Bowles and Carpenter each added two hits for the Fightin' Quakers.
- Trautman, 0-1, took the loss, hurling four innings of relief. She allowed three runs (two earned) on five hits. Junior Beth Persicano (Knoxville, TN/Cincinnati (OH) Turpin) allowed four runs (three earned) on eight hits over four innings.
HEAD COACH QUOTES
"We did a great job of setting the table, but we needed to come up with the big hit," Wilmington head coach Beth Floyd said of game one. "We left too many runners on base. It seemed like we would string a couple of hits together and couldn't plate them."
"All of our pitchers, in game one and game two, threw very well today," said Floyd. "Becca did a good job of getting in front of the batters and making them hit what we she wanted them to hit."
"We played a very good team, and it was an outstanding game of softball," Floyd said of game two. "It came down to the fact we made a couple of inexperienced mistakes that hurt us at the end of the ballgame. On the bright side, we are only going to get better."
"Savannah, Chandler and Grace were outstanding at the plate for us, and so was KenDahl," said Floyd. "She came up with a huge hit at the end of the game."
WHAT'S NEXT
Wilmington (0-4) returns to action 9 a.m. Monday to face Marian, and will play Curry at 11 a.m.