AMHERST, MA – The Amherst College softball team needed a pair of wins over Williams College to claim the fourth and final spot in the 2008 NESCAC Championship. The Lord Jeffs earned a 4-2 win in game one of Saturday's doubleheader and carried a 5-3 lead into the seventh inning of the nightcap, but the Ephs scored seven unearned runs with their backs against the wall and held on for a 10-6 victory to end Amherst's season and advance to their eighth consecutive conference tournament.
The first game saw Williams get on the board in the top of the first, as junior Becky Sansone stole second base after singling through the left side, allowing senior Katie Powers to pick up an RBI on a double to right field. The Ephs added what would be their final run of game one in the second inning when they loaded the bases with three singles through the infield before Sansone hit a sacrifice fly to give her team a 2-0 advantage.
Amherst could not put together any offense in the first three innings but put up four runs—two earned—in the bottom of the fourth. With the bases loaded, senior Kelly King (Grosse Pointe Park, MI) sent a fly ball to left field and wound up on first base when the ball was dropped, as she brought home classmate Elizabeth Neckes (Dover, MA) for the Jeffs' first run. Junior Maddie Tamagni (Salinas, CA) and first-year Sam Presnal (Belchertown, MA) picked up RBI-singles and sophomore Jackie Tyler (Ridgewood, NJ) drove in King when she reached on yet another miscue by the Williams outfield.
The Ephs were sat down in order by Amherst sophomore relief pitcher Alex Chang-Graham (San Carlos, CA) in the fifth and seventh innings, as the Jeffs' four-run fourth inning proved to be all of the offense they would need to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Junior Morgan Simpson (7-5) picked up the loss despite scattering just five hits in 3.2 innings, striking out three and walking two. Emily Fowler-Cornfeld pitched well in relief, allowing only two hits and walking none.
Senior tri-captain Samantha Miller (Newton, MA) got the start for Amherst but was pulled in the second inning, allowing two runs on five hits and one walk in one and one-third innings. Chang-Graham earned her ninth win of the season by allowing just four hits and no walks in 5.2 solid innings of relief. Neckes and Tamagni were each 2-for-3, while junior Joey Lye went 2-for-4 for Williams.
The nightcap was a tale of two halves, as the teams combined for no runs and three hits through the first three and a half innings of play before finishing with a bang. Amherst struck first in the bottom of the fourth when sophomore Emily Neill (Kentfield, CA) walked with one out before junior Holly Trace (Northport, AL) singled to left field to break up Mary Beth Daub's no-hitter. Daub would strike out the side in the inning, but not before Chang-Graham laced a two-out single up the middle to bring in Neill for the first run of the game.
The Ephs responded with one run in the top of the fifth on an RBI-single to right field by first-year Caitlyn Cain, but Amherst broke things open in the home half of the inning with four unearned runs. Trace came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded and took advantage of a Williams fielding error from earlier in the inning, as she cleared the bases with a double to right center and scored on an ensuing single by King. Daub entered the fourth inning with a no-hitter in tact but left the fifth with a four-run deficit, as Amherst took a 5-1 lead.
Two more unearned runs came in for the Ephs in the top of the sixth, with Cain and Lye picking up RBIs on a single and walk, respectively. Fowler-Cornfeld pitched a 1-2-3 inning to hold the Jeffs in the sixth.
Miller came in for relief in the sixth inning but was once again replaced by Chang-Graham when she walked Powers to lead off the top of the seventh. Libby Copeland-Halperin was the first of three consecutive Ephs to reach on an error, with the floodgates opening when Mary Gelber singled to left field to bring in Simpson for the go-ahead run. A Cain sacrifice fly made it 7-5 in favor of Williams before two more errors were committed, as the Ephs sent 11 batters to the plate and scored seven unearned runs on three hits and five errors, suddenly sitting in the driver's seat with a 10-5 lead.
Junior Emily Bularzik (Braintree, MA) led off the bottom of the seventh with her second triple of the season and the bases were soon loaded with only one out, but Daub re-entered the game and gave up a sacrifice fly to King before getting Chang-Graham to ground out for the final out of the day. Amherst made a valiant run and could taste the postseason in the seventh inning, but Williams held on for the 10-6 comeback victory to once again get the best of its archrival.
Bularzik and Trace each had two of the Jeffs' six hits in the nightcap, with Trace driving in three runs and King bringing home a pair. Lye was 3-for-4 with an RBI and run scored, while Gelber and Cain had two hits apiece. Cain also had three RBIs in the game.
Chang-Graham (9-8) was the tough-luck loser in game two, scattering 12 hits for one earned run—nine runs in total—in six and two-thirds innings of work. Daub also allowed only one earned run, striking out six and walking four in 5.1 innings, but it was Fowler-Cornfeld who picked up the win to move to 5-1 on the year.
Prior to the start of game one, Amherst honored Miller, King and Neckes, who represented the Lord Jeff senior class this season as tri-captains. Amherst finishes at 14-18 for the second consecutive season, while Williams moves to 19-18 and will take on Tufts University in the opening round of the NESCAC Championship.
GAME 1 BOX SCORE
GAME 2 BOX SCORE
