NEW LONDON, CT- The Wheaton College softball team opened its
northern slate with a pair of narrow setbacks to the
nationally-ranked United States Coast Guard Academy, 2-0 and 6-3 on
Sunday in each team's league-opening doubleheader.
The Lyons saw their 10-game winning streak snapped in falling to
11-3, while the Bears, last year's New England Women's and Men's
Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) regular season champion, improved to
9-3 as the 19th-ranked team in the National Fastpitch Coaches
Association (NFCA) poll. Coast Guard qualified for the 2009 NCAA
Tournament.
In the opener, sophomore hurler Lesley Warn (Portland,
ME/Deering) held the hosts off the board until the fourth
inning but eventually took the loss, just her second in 12
decisions this spring. Warn struck out three and walked two while
yielding two earned runs on seven hits. Junior Rachel Merrick (Methuen, MA/Central Catholic) finished with two
of the six hits for the visitors, who left two runners on base in
each the first and second innings.
Coast Guard plated the eventual winning run on senior
Carin Sweeney's (Woodbury, MN) two-out single in
the fourth before junior Amanda Frederick (Lebanon,
OH) singled home another two-out run in the fifth after
Warn fanned the first two batters. Frederick finished 2-for-3,
while sophomore Hayley Feindel (River Ridge, LA)
struck out nine without a walk.
The Lyons scored first in game two, with junior Kristen Hunt (Milford, CT/Jonathan Law) tripling with one down in
the second inning before freshman Brittany Calarese
(Norwood, MA/Norwood) drilled a long two-run homer to left
center against Feindel, who yielded just six home runs in 2009
while leading the nation in wins.
However, Coast Guard countered with three runs on three hits and
one error in the home half. Three more runs came home on four hits
and an error in the fourth, pushing the Bears to a 6-2 lead.
Wheaton's first two hitters reached during a scoreless fifth before
Merrick led off the seventh with a double and scored on an error.
Freshman Amanda Drury (Tolland, CT/Tolland), who
finished 3-for-3, then singled to put runners on the corners with
no one out, but the Lyons were unable to score further.
Senior Andrea Bagley (Foxboro, MA/Foxboro) took
the loss for Wheaton, allowing four earned runs on seven hits,
while Warn fired a pair of scoreless innings in relief, yielding
one hit. Feindel notched another win, fanning seven with three
walks. Freshman Megan Cook (Virginia Beach, VA)
was one of three Bears with two hits and also drove home three
runs.
The Lyons remain on the road on Tuesday when they face
Bridgewater State College for a twinbill that begins at 3:00
p.m.
