FORT MYERS, Fla. (March 13, 2011) – The Stevens Institute of Technology softball team dropped both ends of a doubleheader Monday morning to even their season record at 2-2. The Ducks lost to Amherst College 9-3 before falling to North Park University 6-0.
Game 1 vs. Amherst
The game's leadoff hitter for Amherst reached base on a Stevens error in game one, but a couple of great plays by the Ducks kept them off the board in the first inning. Freshman Noreen Jordan made a nice sliding catch in right for the first out and Danielle DeFeo and Victoria Webber turned a line-drive double play to catch the Lord Jeffs runner wandering too far off of third.
After throwing the shutout inning to start things off, Stevens starting pitcher Kayla Berardi led off the bottom of the first for the Ducks and provided some excitement as she walked and stole a base but was left stranded.
Left fielder Carolyn Miller (Leominster, Mass.) led off the top of the second for the Lord Jeffs with a homer down the leftfield line. Two more walks and two more hits in the inning, including a 2-RBI double by Christina Anderson (Port St. Lucie, Fla.) gave Amherst an early 4-0 lead.
After a long second, Berardi came back strong and set Amherst down in order in the third inning and shut them down in the fourth as well.
Sophomore catcher Clair Strom socked a double to the wall with one out in the fourth for the first Stevens hit of the morning.
Berardi continued to be effective through the middle innings, setting Amherst down in order in their half of the fifth.
Victoria Webber and Danielle DeFeo began the Stevens fifth with back-to-back singles and senior shortstop Naomi Sacks drove Webber home with a single down the leftfield line to make the score 4-1 after five.
The Lord Jeffs got the run right back in the sixth on an RBI single by Arielle Doering (Branchburg, N.J.) and added four more in the seventh to pull away and make the score 9-1.
Webber knocked her second-straight single to begin the bottom of the last inning, and scored on a basehit by pitcher Kayla Berardi. Sacks ripped another single of her own to drive in Berardi and trim the final score to 9-3 in favor of Amherst.
Game 2 vs. North Park
The Vikings jumped out to a 1-0 lead as they knocked three basehits and used a sacrifice fly by Katie Anderson (Park Ridge, Ill.) to score their first-inning run. North Park loaded the bases again with one out in the second, but Stevens starter Molly Herforth induced a popup and groundout to escape the jam and keep it a one-run game. Herforth then settled in and pitched a one-two-three third.
For the Ducks, Danielle DeFeo got a two-out basehit single in the third and stole second to move to scoring position for the biggest Stevens threat up until that point.
Third baseman Victoria Webber made a good-looking over-the-shoulder grab down the leftfield line with two on and one out in the fourth, though NPU went on to score five in that frame to increase their overall lead to six.
Naomi Sacks opened the bottom of the fourth for Stevens with a ground-rule double down the leftfield line, her third hit of the day. But both Herforth and opposing pitcher Kate Seebacher (Skokie, Ill.) went on to shut down their opposing lineups though the rest of the game afer Sacks' double. Only three of Herforth's six runs were earned in the game.
The Ducks will return to action Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. The team will take on Nichols College and Norwich University from the Twins' spring training complex in Ft. Myers. Follow the action live at twitter.com/stevensducks.
