During a tightly-contested series, the Stony Brook softball team rode a mix of its veterans and young guns to get back on track in Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) play.
Wrapping up a five-game homestand, the Seawolves (8-15, 4-5 CAA) faced off against the Charleston Cougars (13-18, 6-3 CAA) at University Field over the weekend. To begin the three-game set, Stony Brook fell 2-1 on Friday before evening the series up with a 5-4 victory on Saturday. During the series finale on Sunday, the Seawolves took the rubber game 5-4 once again, this time in dramatic, walk-off fashion.
During the series opener, the Cougars kicked off the scoring immediately. After getting two quick outs in the top of the first inning, Charleston first baseman Sierra Paradis took starting pitcher Crimson Rice deep to straight-away center field, giving her team an instant 1-0 lead.
Following a few quiet innings, Stony Brook had a chance to tie the score in the bottom of the fourth inning, but things did not go its way. With one on and no outs, center fielder Alyssa Costello bunted for a single, but the home plate umpire ruled that the ball hit her bat twice and called her out.
With two on and one out, Charleston starting pitcher Mackenzie Mathis hit designated player Mia Vannelli with a pitch to load the bases, but the umpires got involved once again, ruling that she leaned into it. With Vannelli back in the batter’s box, Mathis got an out via a fielder’s choice before inducing a flyout to end the threat.
In the top of the sixth inning, Rice hit her first true wall of the day. With two outs and the bases empty, she began to struggle with her command, walking two straight batters. Immediately after, Paradis continued to have her number, as she sent a run-scoring single into center field to extend the Cougars’ advantage to 2-0.
Left-hander Gabrielle Maday worked a scoreless inning of relief during the top of the seventh inning, but the Seawolves were unable to pull off the comeback. Mathis slammed the door on Stony Brook after allowing a leadoff homer to Vannelli in the bottom of the frame.
For a third straight start, Rice performed well, allowing two runs on four hits and three walks while striking out two Cougars across six innings. During Maday’s lone frame, she surrendered a hit and punched out two. However, the Seawolves mustered up just four knocks and worked one walk in the contest.
“We’re best when we’re stringing hits together and not relying on one person and that’s what we didn’t do today in a low-scoring game,” head coach Megan Bryant said in a postgame interview with The Statesman. “[Rice] and [Maday] combined to give us a great opportunity to win, but they can only give us a chance to win from the circle.”
Flipping the script from game one, Stony Brook got on the board first during Saturday’s affair. To lead off the bottom of the second inning, left fielder Emma Scheitinger ambushed starting pitcher Ryley Kutter, crushing the first pitch she saw off the scoreboard in left field for her first collegiate home run.
“My mentality is always to attack early and I told myself ‘if she leaves something there, I’m going to swing,’” Scheitinger said. “It’s a surreal feeling and you never plan it, but I was just happy to help my team out and put a run on the board.”
Nevertheless, the Seawolves’ lead was short-lived. With two runners in scoring position and two out in the top of the third inning, Charleston designated player Kennedy Rhue lined a single off starting pitcher Maddie Male’s glove to score a run.
With runners now on the corners, Rhue took off for second base, drawing the throw and swiping the bag while center fielder Kaytlin Stacey rushed home from third to pull off the double steal and give the Cougars a 2-1 lead.
An inning later, Charleston tacked onto its lead with right-hander Jordyn Fray on in relief. With a runner on second base and two outs, shortstop Austy Miller pulled a triple just over the first-base bag and into the right-field corner, picking up a run batted in (RBI).
In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Seawolves drew closer due to a Cougars blunder. With two on and two out, right fielder Kaiya Simpkins chopped a ground ball to third baseman Julia Sitterding, whose throw bounced away from Paradis at first to bring in a run.
During the following inning, some more luck went Stony Brook’s way. With Kutter one out away from stranding the tying run at second base, Vannelli blooped an RBI single into right field that barely landed fair on the chalk to tie things up at 3-3.
Immediately after Vannelli’s RBI knock, Kutter plunked Scheitinger to prolong the inning, prompting Charleston to turn to relief pitcher Campbell Schaen. Upon entering the game, Schaen was greeted rudely, as catcher Emily Reinstein ripped a two-run double over Stacey’s head in center field to put the Seawolves ahead 5-3.
“Throughout the game, the pitchers had been working hard and the defense had been working hard,” Reinstein said. “I was just thinking that ‘I’ve got to come up, score a run, have my team’s back and do something for them.’”
In the top of the seventh inning, Maday experienced some hairy moments with hopes of locking the game down. With two on and one out, Stacey sent a grounder to second baseman Naiah Ackerman, who Sitterding appeared to interfere with on her way to second. After initially calling Sitterding out, the umpires got together and determined that Ackerman fell backwards on her own, filling the bases with both the tying and go-ahead runs on.
Though Rhue sent a sacrifice fly to right field to make it 5-4, Maday got catcher Leela Langston to ground out to secure the save.
“Yesterday, I didn’t feel like we were as aggressive or poised as we could have been,” Bryant said. “Today, we flipped it really. Had a totally different mindset, had a great [batting practice] and carried it into the game.”
In a brief start, Male allowed two runs on four hits and two walks with two strikeouts across three innings.
In relief, Fray surrendered a run on three hits over two innings to earn her first collegiate victory. Maday hammered down her first save of the season, racking up two strikeouts while giving up a run on four hits in two innings.
Sensing a chance at a series win on Sunday, Stony Brook’s lineup came out firing from the jump. With runners on the corners and two outs in the bottom of the first, Mathis induced a ground ball off Vannelli’s bat. Second baseman Gracyn Hyatt bobbled it and failed to get the force out at second, allowing a run to score and keeping the inning alive.
During the ensuing at-bat, Scheitinger capitalized, slicing an RBI single through the right side of the infield. With another chance to end the frame immediately after, Sitterding booted a grounder off Simpkins’ bat, capping off a three-run opening inning for the Seawolves.
“I thought we had a good mindset coming in with us seeing [Mathis] for a second time,” Bryant said. “I thought we had a lot of poise and hit a lot of balls hard today.”
However, Stony Brook’s lead was quickly erased in the top of the third inning. With the bases juiced and no one out, Sitterding made up for her prior mistake and yanked an RBI single down the third-base line.
Following her up, Paradis continued to have Rice’s number, as she walked her to force in a run and make it 3-2.
After the free pass, Bryant turned to Maday yet again, who limited the damage despite being placed into a pressure-cooker spot. Though the tying run came around to score on an RBI fielder’s choice by Miller, Sitterding led off third base early on the next play for a gift second out, paving way for Maday to eventually escape the jam with a groundout.
With one inherited runner scoring, Rice’s final line was not nearly as pretty as Friday’s, as she allowed three runs on three hits and two walks over two innings-plus.
After both sides stranded two runners in scoring position in the bottom of the fifth and top of the sixth innings, Stony Brook finally broke the dry spell in the bottom of the sixth.
Outfielder Nicole Allen was called upon to pinch hit and she delivered, leading things off by blooping a double into left field for her first collegiate hit. After Simpkins bunted her over to third base, Costello came through by rocketing a go-ahead sacrifice fly to the warning track on center field.
Despite the late lead, the Cougars did not go away quietly. With one away in the top of the seventh inning, center fielder Jay Wrightsman laced a grounder toward shortstop Kyra McFarland, but she could not corral it.
Two batters later, Paradis struck again, as she smashed an opposite-field hit over Scheitinger’s head in right field that she narrowly beat out for a double just before the tying run crossed the plate.
After Maday left Paradis hanging at second base to end the threat, McFarland displayed a short memory and called game to lead off the bottom of the seventh. With Mathis still in the circle, McFarland clobbered a towering solo shot to center field for the first walk-off home run of her career.
“I feel like I should have had her the inning before so I was really frustrated,” McFarland said. “I was like, ’man, she scored, it’s my fault,’ and I was getting down on myself a little bit. [Third baseman Madelyn Stepski] really helped me reel it back in. She just wished me good luck on my at-bat and I tried to just hit a hard ball in play.”
All in all, it was a terrific game for McFarland, whose walk-off bomb capped off a day where she went 4-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored. Through the first two games of the series, she went 2-for-6 with a double and a run.
Maday was lights out coming out of the bullpen yet again, picking up three strikeouts and surrendering just one run on five hits through five innings of work.
“I’m just taking any opportunity that I have to help my team in whatever situation it is,” Maday said. “When I’ve been starting games, that’s not the outcome I’ve been looking for, so the fact that I’m given another opportunity to come in when it’s a close game and feed off of what the other pitchers before me had done, I’m just really trying to work with the defense and give whatever I can to give the team the best chance to win.”
Offensively, Vannelli, Scheitinger and Reinstein each had a strong series. Vannelli went 5-for-9 with a double, home run, two RBIs and four runs while Scheitinger delivered two hits in eight at-bats with a home run, two RBIs, two runs and a hit-by-pitch.
Reinstein went 3-for-8 with a double, two RBIs and a hit-by-pitch.
Despite going just 1-for-9, Costello added an RBI and scored a run while hitting the ball hard throughout the weekend. Allen made the most of her limited playing time, doubling and scoring a run in two at-bats.
The Seawolves will look to keep their momentum going on Tuesday in Fairfield, Conn. when they take on the Sacred Heart Pioneers in a doubleheader. The Pioneers are 10-12 this season and 1-2 in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference action. They are coming into the matchup having lost a series against Rider over the weekend. First pitch for Tuesday is set for 2 p.m. with game two scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
