Cortland Beats RPI and Tufts to Advance to Championship Round of NCAA Softball Regional
Cortland Sports Information Department
GLASSBORO, N.J. - Fourth-seeded Cortland advanced to the championship round of the NCAA Division III Softball Glassboro Regional with wins over third-seeded RPI, 10-5, and second-seeded Tufts, 9-2, in elimination games on Saturday.
Cortland (25-15) will face host and top-seeded Rowan on Sunday at 11 a.m. Cortland needs to beat the Profs twice to win the regional and advance to the NCAA Super Regional round. Rowan, ranked fourth nationally, opened Saturday with a 3-2 win over Tufts in the completion of a game halted by rain on Friday. Cortland lost to Rowan, 8-0, in the opening game of the regional on Thursday.
Cortland 10, RPI 5
Cortland trailed 5-0 entering the bottom of the third before rallying for five runs to tie the game, and the Red Dragons pulled away with four runs in the fifth and one in the sixth. Sophia Wahl (Schuylerville) entered to pitch in the top of the fourth after Cortland tied the game and shut down the Engineers the rest of the way for the win. She gave up one hit and four walks and struck out two over four innings. McKenna Barry (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) allowed five runs, four earned, over the first three frames.
Kayla Pendergast (West Hempstead) finished 2-for-3 with a walk and RBI and Laila Smith (Guilderland) was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI for the Red Dragons. Halle Wright (Ballston Spa) went 1-for-2 with three walks and two runs scored and Kaeli McAnally (Islip) ended 1-for-3 with a walk, RBI and two runs.
RPI (28-13) was led by Sydney Speanburg, who finished 1-for-2 with two walks, a hit by pitch, an RBI and run scored, and Addison Shaffer, who doubled in three runs. Ava Markert started and allowed eight runs, five earned, on eight hits in four and a third innings. She struck out three and walked two.
RPI scored four in the top of the second on a Callista Adorno bases-loaded hit by pitch and Shaffer's three-run double. Speanburg's RBI single in the third pushed the lead to 5-0.
Cortland's five-run bottom of the third opened with a Wright walk, a Smith single and a groundout to put runners on second and third. Barry hit a grounder to short to drive in a run, and she was safe on the play on an error. Shelby LaMont (Amsterdam) followed with an RBI single to make it 5-2. With two outs, McAnally singled to drive in pinch runner Emily Stavola (Somers), Pendergast hit an RBI single, and an error on a ball hit by Lainie Ornstein (Yorktown Heights/Yorktown) allowed the tying run to score.
Shannon Scotto (Putnam Valley/Lakeland) opened the bottom of the fifth with a single, and Pendergast walked with one out to advance pinch runner Natalie McMichael (Hicksville/Kellenberg Memorial) to second. A passed ball allowed the runners to move to second and third, and Ornstein followed with a single to second to drive in a run, with a second run also scoring after a bad throw on the play. Wright walked and Smith hit a two-run double to give Cortland a 9-5 lead. The Red Dragons' final run came via an error in the sixth.
Cortland 9, Tufts 2
Cortland eliminated Tufts (29-15), which advanced to the NCAA Division III World Series and tied for fifth nationally last spring. Gianna Endieveri (Glens Falls) went the distance for her 10th win of the season, allowing two runs on six hits with a walk and two strikeouts.
Tufts starter Lacy Chilek suffered her first loss in eight decisions this season, giving up three runs on six hits in two and two thirds innings. Sophia Dicocco, the Jumbos' ace, entered in the third and gave up five runs, three earned, on seven hits over the next two and a third innings.
Cortland finished with 14 hits, led by LaMont, who went 3-for-4 with a double and three RBI, and Wright, who was 3-for-4 with a double and three runs scored. Smith was 2-for-4 with two RBI and Maggie Cummings (Holland Patent) went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run.
Bela Jimenez finished 2-for-3 and Heaven Oliva and Lindsay Neumann each doubled for Tufts. Oliva also walked and finished with two RBI.
Cortland struck first in the bottom of the first on singles by Wright and Smith and, with two outs, a LaMont RBI single up the middle. Tufts took a 2-1 lead in the third on an Oliva two-out, two-run double, but the Red Dragons came right back with two runs of their own in the bottom of the inning. With two outs, Cummings singled and scored on a Barry double to left center.
Cortland added three in the fourth to go up 6-2. The Red Dragons loaded the bases with no outs on a Pendergast walk, an Ornstein single and a Wright single. Smith hit a two-run single and Cummings followed with an RBI single. Cortland scored a run on an error in the fifth to make it 7-2, and in the sixth Wright doubled and, with two outs, Barry reached on an error to allow a run to score and LaMont hit an RBI double.
