Union – The Kean women’s Softball team played a doubleheader against Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU)-Florham at home on the Cougar field at Kean University.
They played one game at 3 p.m. and another at 5 p.m.
The Cougars played both games smoothly. The Cougars took home both wins against the FDU-Florham Devils.
They now stand at a record of 4-2 and Florham’s record becomes 1-3.
In the first game, the final score was 1-2, with Kean coming out on top.
The Devils started hot but began to lose steam by the end of the first game.
Erin Sinatra pitched for their team the entire game. She has been stated to be a dangerous pitcher but a good one. Florham fought hard just as Nike Lusaka pitched the entire game and the Cougars allowed the Devils to score only once in the second inning. That score was made by Grace Cappar.
Kean did not score anything until the second inning. Kylie Allen was the first player to make it onto a base and the team did not begin to score anything until the fifth inning in this game.
Kiley Allen and Natalie Stannard were the only two who scored during the game.
The Cougars set the bar high in this game. These two had a close game but only one of them was able to pull through.
In the second game, things got a little bit tougher between the Cougars and the Devils.
Both teams decided to change out their pitchers for this game. Anabella Farinha stepped into the circle for this game and for the Devils Sydney Grifo stepped in.
For most of the game, things moved pretty quickly throughout the innings. Both teams fought hard and put a lot more fight into this game.
The Devils led by one throughout most of the second game. The score was 3-2. The Cougars held them at bay for a while and would not allow them to score.
Kean led off each bottom half of an inning with more hits than they did in the first game. They took more time to take risks and swing at certain pitches that were thrown. At one point they had two back-to-back girls get hit by pitches.
It wasn’t until the fifth inning that things turned on the field. The Cougars managed to score eight runs in the bottom of the fifth allowing them to take a major lead in the game. By the time the fifth inning was over, the Cougars were winning 10-3.
Amid Kean taking the lead, the Devils switched their pitchers from Grifo to Kelly Cornog to try and put an end to them scoring runs.
The game ended in the sixth inning when Briana Sciulli hit a ground ball to third while Allen was on second and Gina Mahlik was on third. Mahlik ran home and allowed Kean to win the game by the Run-up Rule.
The Run-up Rule is only used in NCAA Softball when a team is ahead by eight or more runs after five or more innings such as this game which ended in the sixth. A very short game.
While the Cougars celebrate their two wins from this double header, their head coach, Margie Acker, also has something to celebrate. In this game she received her 600th career win with the Kean University softball team. A huge milestone has been set for her.
After this double header tonight, the Kean University softball team will be making their way to Florida for their full week of playing in The Spring Games.
