Seton Hall University
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North Florida
Softball Homers Three Times in win over BGSU
3/7/2015 12:00:00 AM | Softball
CLEARWATER, FLA. - The Seton Hall University softball team split a pair of games during its first day of competition at the USF Under Armour Showcase in Clearwater, Fla. A home run barrage lifted the Pirates to a 13-4 win in six innings against Bowling Green, but The Hall was defeated by North Florida, 10-4.
Seton Hall 13, Bowling Green 4 (6)
Seton Hall (7-9) had to make a bit of a comeback in the win over Bowling Green, but once the offense started rolling the big hits kept coming. The Falcons scored twice in the first as Haley Schrock drew up a two-run single. The Pirates got one back in the third. Valerie Suto (Mercerville, N.J.) singled to lead off the inning, stole second and eventually scored on a Whitney Jones (Skowhegan, Maine) sacrifice fly.
A pair of multi-run homers during the Pirate half of the fifth iced the game, and virtually all of the damage during what would eventually go down as a nine-run inning, came with two outs.
There were two on and two down as Jones blasted a three-run shot over the wall in left, giving Seton Hall its first lead of the day, 4-2. That would not even be the biggest hit of the inning, although The Hall needed just one more hit to bring in four more runs. An error, walk, and hit batter, loaded the bases for Faith Laudano (Islip, N.Y.), and she homered for the second time this season, sending a grand slam to left center and extending the SHU lead to 8-2.
One more run would score. Jackie DiPietro (Horsham, Pa.) doubled, and was driven in by Noel Lent (Yaphanic, N.Y.), wrapping up a nine-run frame for The Hall.
A third home run came just an inning later. Freshman Alexis Walkden (Cibolo, Texas) took over the team lead for homers by leaving the yard for a sixth time, making it 13-3, with a three-run bomb.
Lauren Fischer (Robbinsville, N.J.) threw six innings with a season-high six strikeouts to pick up her third win of the year. Fischer (3-4) allowed just six hits in five innings.
North Florida 10, Seton Hall 4
After trading runs in the first, North Florida broke through for four runs in the bottom half of the second, leaving the Pirates to play catchup the rest of the way. Yasmin Harrell (Cheektowaga, N.Y.) drew a walk to leadoff the game, coming around to score thanks to back-to-back singles, with Sara Haefeli (Montclair, N.J.) recording the RBI on a base hit to left.
Starter Danielle DeStaso (Congers, N.Y.) found trouble early in second. The Ospreys loaded the bases with no outs and Alex Arciola brought them all home with a base clearing double into the gap in left. DeStaso gave up just one more hit in the inning, but the Pirates faced a 5-1 deficit through two.
Seton Hall's bats sprung to life in the next half inning, and once again it was Haefeli coming up with the clutch hit. With the bases loaded and just one out, she singled to center, scoring Suto and Lent to make it 5-3. Laudano pulled her team within one thanks to an infield single with two outs, bringing Whitney Jones in from third, but Kaylie Wallace escaped the two-out jam.
It remained a one-run game until North Florida orchestrated a four-run fourth. The first four batters of the inning all recorded base hit, as the lead stretched to 7-4. A pair of unearned runs gave them a five-run lead for the first time. Eventually Fischer came in to close out the game, escaping the fourth, while giving up one run on three hits over the final 2.2 innings.
Seton Hall is back in action on Saturday with two more games at the USF Under Armour Showcase. The Pirates will face Wisconsin at 11:15 a.m., followed by SIUE at 1:45 p.m.
