Softball’s season record now stands as 25-17. Joshua Kim/ The Fordham Ram
By Anthony Pucik
The Fordham softball team was riding high coming off a sweep of the UMass Minutewomen on the road. They were 21-16 overall on the season and 7-4 in Atlantic 10 play heading into a mid-week doubleheader with the St. Bonaventure Bonnies on the road Wednesday, April 15.
The Bonnies got the scoring started in the bottom of the second on a Katie Sinclair solo home run off Rams’ redshirt junior starter Rachel Gillen to take a 1-0 lead. Fordham would tie and take its first lead of the game in the top of the fourth on senior Paige Ortiz’s two-run homer to make it 2-1 Rams.
The back-and-forth battle continued into the bottom of the fifth, when Morgan Phillips’ RBI single plated another run for the Bonnies to tie the game at two.
In the sixth, the Rams began to pull away. Gillen hit a two-run home run and a two-RBI single, senior Brianna Turgeon chipped in an RBI single and sophomore Katie Mayer added a two-RBI single allowing seven runs to cross home and give Fordham a 9-2 advantage.
The Rams added another run in the top of the seventh on a RBI single by freshman Morgan Figueroa, and Fordham took the first game 10-2. Gillen pitched five strong innings for her 15th win of the season (15-7) and junior reliever Patti Maloney pitched two scoreless innings of relief for the Rams. Starter Carly Bilchak earned the loss for the Bonnies (0-3).
Senior starter Michele Daubman got the nod for the Rams in the second game of the doubleheader, and fellow senior Kayla Lombardo’s RBI single in the top of the first gave Fordham an early 1-0 lead. It was a pitcher’s duel between Daubman and St. Bonaventure starter Josie Borysevicz until the top of the sixth, when Fordham plated two more runs on a two-run homer from Lombardo to go up 3-0. In the bottom of the inning, the Bonnies scored three runs on RBI singles by Grace Rooney and Desiree Gonzales and a single by Sinclair that led to an error and scored a run to tie the game at three.
Gillen came on in relief of Daubman to get out of the sixth, but surrendered an RBI single to Gonzalez in the bottom of seventh to give the Bonnies the walk off, 4-3 victory. Gillen sufferd the loss to drop to 15-8 on the season, while Borysevicz earned her eighth victory of the season (8-6).
Fordham returned home to take on the St. Joseph’s University Hawks in a three-game set this past weekend, starting with a doubleheader on Saturday, April 18. In the first game, the Fordham offense got off to a great start once again, scoring seven runs in the bottom of the first. It started with a Mayer RBI fielder’s choice, and then she later scored on a pass ball. Lombardo and Gillen picked up RBI doubles each, followed by RBI singles from Daubman and Ianiro. A wild pitch allowed Daubman to score from third, giving the Rams a 7-0 advantage after one.
That was all the run support Gillen would need, as she pitched a five inning shutout, giving up only three hits and striking out 10 while walking none. Van Hoven added an RBI double in the bottom of the third, and Fordham took the game in five innings 8-0. Gillen earned win number 16 (16-8), while Hawks’ starter Madison Clarke suffered just her fifth loss of the season (16-5).
The second game was scoreless until the bottom of the third, when Gillen broke through with a two-run home run to put Fordham up 2-0. Daubman helped out her own cause with a solo home run in the fourth and a three-run homer in the fifth to make it a seven-run contest. Junior Allie Bradian’s RBI single gave Fordham an 8-0 lead and the win as well. Daubman pitched a five inning, three-hit game for her sixth win of the season (6-7), while Anna Lauterbach suffered the loss for the Hawks (1-3).
The final game of the series on Sunday, April 19 featured a picther’s duel between Gillen and Lauterbach. The score was 2-0 Rams after five innings of play on RBI groundouts by Lombardo and Canessa, but both pitchers were doing exceptionally well against the two best offenses in the Atlantic 10 heading into the weekend.
In the sixth, Gillen helped her cause further by blasting a two-run homer over the left center field seats to make it 4-0. Gillen followed that up by shutting out the Hawks in the seventh to give Fordham the sweep.
Gillen pitched seven innings of two-hit ball while striking out eight for her 17th victory of the year (17-8). Lauterbach pitched six strong innings for St. Joseph’s, with her only mistake on the home run to Gillen, but suffered the loss (1-4).
The sweep improved the Rams to 25-17 overall on the season and 11-5 in conference play. Fordham’s next game is Wednesday, April 22, at Hofstra at 4 p.m.
