Softball splits two against Bates

The Hamilton College softball team split a doubleheader with Bates College on Saturday afternoon, bouncing back to win game two 11-4 after losing the opener 5-3. The games were played at Tufts University’s Spicer Field in Medford, Mass.

Game one box score | Game two box score

Monique St. Jarre ’15 earned her first win of the season with four innings of shutout relief in the nightcap. The Continentals (11-14 overall) scored three times in the third to go ahead for good, then sealed the win with six fifth-inning runs.

Hamilton’s third-inning rally was helped by a pair of Bobcat errors and a passed ball. Kelly Leonard ’15 and Olivia Gozdz ’16 walked and both scored when Ellie Kiernan ’15 reached on an outfield error. Kiernan came around to score on a passed ball.

Two more Bates errors contributed to the Continentals’ six-run fifth. Becca Butler ’17 singled in a pair of runs and Phoebe Collins ’18 and Kiernan added run-scoring hits.

Butler, Zoe Singer ’18 and Daphne Assimakopoulos ’17 each had two of Hamilton’s nine hits.

St. Jarre came in with no outs and two runners on in the fourth. After an infield error and an RBI single by Karen Lockhart ’16 brought in a pair of runs, St. Jarre allowed just three more baserunners. Butler helped St. Jarre get out of the fourth-inning jam by picking a runner off third for the first out.

Maddie Inlow ’17 and Kira Shaikh ’15 had two hits apiece for Bates (3-16). Shaikh scored two runs and Inlow drove in a pair.

Inlow singled in Shaikh in the top of the first to open the game’s scoring and doubled her home in the third.

Singer hit a two-run home run – the first of her career – to put the Continentals on the board in the second.

In game one Bates, who batted as the home team in the opener, scored three times in the bottom of the sixth to erase Hamilton’s 3-2 lead.

Kelsey Freedman ‘15, who allowed just one earned run in picking up the win for Bates, set the Continentals down in order in the seventh.

Collins singled in a Hamilton run in the fourth after Bates had gone ahead with two third-inning runs. In the fifth, the Continentals scored twice without the benefit of a hit, capitalizing on a Julia Carpenter ’18 walk, a Bobcat error and a run-scoring ground out by Gozdz to go up 3-2.

Inlow led off the Bates sixth with a single and scored the tying run on a triple by Victoria Fitzgerald ‘18. A wild pitch brought Fitzgerald in with the go-ahead run and Marina Barsoum ’16 drove in an insurance run with an infield hit.

Assimakopoulos had two of the Continentals’ four hits.

Hamilton remains in Massachusetts for a 2 p.m. game against Amherst College on Sunday, April 19. The game, which had been postponed from March 28, is the conclusion of a three-game NESCAC West Division series. The Continentals won the first two games to open their NESCAC West schedule.