The Massachusetts softball team concluded its fall season on Sunday by splitting a doubleheader with American International College and UMass-Lowell.
In the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader, the Minutewomen turned to junior Caroline Raymond in the circle against Lowell, as she threw six innings, in the 6-3 loss. Raymond is returning this year after missing all of last season with an arm injury.
The Riverhawks got to Raymond in the top of the second inning after the Minutewomen committed two errors in the inning, but she escaped only trailing 1-0.
Junior Lindsey Webster responded in the bottom half of the inning by hitting a solo home run to right field to tie the game up at one.
“The home run was good,” Webster said. “Actually before that pitch our assistant coach called me over and said ‘Lindsey, will you let the ball travel?’ and I said ‘Yes Christie’ and I did and I was happy to get the momentum back on our side and get Caroline some support.”
Lowell jumped back on top in the top of the fifth when third baseman Ali Ferraro took Raymond deep to left-center field for a solo home run of her own to go up 2-1.
The Riverhawks added on to their lead in the top of the sixth when shortstop Katie Mazure hit a bases-loaded double, plating two runners to extend Lowell’s lead to 4-1.
The Minutewomen fought back in the bottom half of the inning when Quianna Diaz-Patterson reached first on a throwing error, bringing across the second run for UML. But, that was all it could muster and trailed heading into the seventh inning, 4-2.
The Riverhawks added two more runs in the top of the seventh and the Minutewomen failed to pull off a rally late.
In its first game of the doubleheader, UMass used a big fourth inning and a balanced offense to break open a close contest and knock off the Yellow Jackets, 12-5.
“I think this team has tremendous potential offensively, I really, really do,” UMass coach Elaine Sortino said. “If we could point to something that was disappointing it was the consistency in our at-bats. Not the outcome, but in the at-bats themselves.”
The Minutewomen’s offense showed up early, with the first four batters reaching base on hits.
The first run of the game came courtesy of freshman Jaime Conklin, who singled in Cyndil Matthew to go up 1-0. Later in the inning, Webster brought home the team’s second run on a groundout, giving UMass a 2-0 lead after the first inning.
The real offensive explosion came in the fourth inning, when the Minutewomen batted around, plating seven runs, with the big blow coming off the bat of Conklin. The freshman lined an RBI triple to left-center field and then scored on a throwing error to put UMass up 8-0. The team added one more run before the inning would finally end.
AIC continued to battle though, as it scored five runs in the top of the sixth inning on a barrage of walks and base hits, closing the gap to 9-5. But UMass ended the game by adding three runs of its own in the bottom of the seventh to hold on for the win.
Sunday’s games were the last two games of the fall season for the Minutewomen, leaving the team just the winter offseason to get prepared for the regular season.
“Considering that we’re trying to develop our pitching, we went through some situations that, obviously, if games were real and counting, we would have handled them strategically a little bit different,” said Sortino after Sunday’s games.
UMass is looking to build off of last season’s success, when it went 29-19 and won the Atlantic 10 tournament before losing in the regional round of the NCAA tournament.
Season resumes in the spring.
Patrick Strohecker can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @MDC_Strohecker.
