The Hamilton College softball team opened NESCAC West Division play by sweeping host Amherst College on Friday, winning 13-5 and 9-7. The Continentals (7-7, 2-0 NESCAC West) pounded out 35 hits, including 10 for extra bases.
Game one box score | Game two box score
The games were played at the Pappas Recreation Complex in Auburn, Mass., because of poor field conditions at Amherst.
Olivia Gozdz ’16, the current NESCAC Player of the Week, led the way with an eight-for-10 performance that included six runs batted in, four runs scored, three doubles and a home run. Five other Continentals had at least three hits in the sweep.
In the opener Hamilton scored in every inning with every starter collecting at least one hit and either a run scored or an RBI. Gozdz had four hits including RBI doubles in the first and sixth innings.
Ellie Kiernan ’15 went two-for-five in both games. She singled in a run to put Hamilton up 2-0 in the first inning of game one.
Phoebe Collins ’18 hit a two-run single in the fifth. Hannah Staab ’17 doubled in a run in the second and added a run-scoring groundout an inning later.
Daphne Assimakopoulos ’17 hit RBI singles in the third and fourth innings and Monique St. Jarre ’15 added run-scoring singles in the third and seventh.
Kelly Leonard ’15, who earned the complete-game win, tripled home a sixth-inning run. She improved to 6-2 this spring and raised her career total to 28 wins, good for second on the program’s all-time list. She also moved to within two strikeouts of Hamilton’s career record of 319, set by Megan Coughlin ’09 from 2006 to 2009.
In the nightcap, Leonard and Zoe Singer ’18 combined to throw five shutout innings of relief. Singer earned her first collegiate win with four innings of five-strikeout pitching, and Leonard picked up the save with a scoreless seventh.
Hamilton scored four times in the first before the Lord Jeffs (8-6, 0-2) took their only lead of the day with a seven-run second. The Continentals scored twice in the fourth then took the lead for good with three more runs in the fifth.
Gozdz brought Hamilton to within 7-6 with a two-run homer in the fourth, then broke the 7-7 tie with a two-run double through the left side an inning later. Staab, who was three-for-four, had drawn a bases-loaded walk to plate the tying run.
Staab stole home in the top of the first to open the scoring. Two batters later Kiernan singled in a run and Becca Butler ’17 hit a run-scoring double for the first of her three hits. A run-scoring bunt by Mackenzie Doherty ’18 closed out the four-run rally.
Amherst’s Brianna Cook ’16 had two of her three hits during the Lord Jeffs’ seven-run outburst. She led off the inning with a single and brought home the last two runs with a triple. Alyssa Sherwill ’15 singled in two runs, Jackie Carr ’18 hit an RBI triple and Kelsey Ayers ’15 added a sacrifice fly.
Ayers, Carr and Caroline Sealander ’15 had two hits each for the Lord Jeffs, who were held to five hits over their final five innings. Ayers and Carr both finished with four hits on the day.
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