The late innings were good to Yale softball Wednesday.
The Bulldogs (16-15, 2-2 Ivy) won both ends of a doubleheader with Quinnipiac (9-15) in the closing innings of each game. Freshman Shayna Filson broke Yale’s single season home-run record with a two-run homer to left in the sixth inning of the second game.
Yale needed eight innings to defeat the Braves 2-1 in the first game and used a four-run sixth inning to come from behind and win the second 4-2.
“I was very proud of the team for not giving up,” captain Monica Lebron ’01 said. “In the first game, we went to extra innings, and in the second we were down by two in the sixth, but we rallied back to win them both.”
The two victories pushed the Bulldogs over the .500 mark for the first time in three weeks.
Filson’s fifth home run of the year broke the old single-season mark of four set by Khelia Johnson ’99 two seasons ago.
The front end of the doubleheader set the tone for the low-scoring day, with Cara Denver ’02 holding Quinnipiac scoreless for the first five innings. Yale was able to grab a 1-0 lead in the second when an error committed by Brave first baseman Elizabeth Moriarty allowed Kristen Maturo ’01 to score the game’s first run.
Quinnipiac answered in the sixth when Callie Bundy drew a bases-loaded walk to even the score. Neither team scored in the seventh inning, but Yale was able to break through in the eighth.
After Jesseka Bartholomew ’03 drew a leadoff walk and Leah Kelley ’04 reached on a fielder’s choice, a wild pitch allowed the runners to take second and third with no outs. Maturo then singled in Britni Fabacher ’04 — who had come on to pinch run for Bartholomew — for the winning run.
Denver closed out the Quinnipiac eighth for the complete game victory. She scattered 10 hits and struck out two on the day.
“We got some good pitching [on Wednesday],” head coach Andy Van Etten said. “They had a lot of hits, but we spread them out enough to get the win.”
The second game began as another low-scoring affair. Quinnipiac got to Yale’s Jillian Miles ’04 with two runs in the third inning, but Miles settled down after that, not allowing another run in the game. Yale was held scoreless for the first five innings, but managed to break through with four runs in the sixth.
Lebron scored on a wild pitch, and Alice Liu ’01 scored soon after on a Kelley RBI ground-out. And after Maturo reached on an error, Filson followed with her record-breaking home run to give Yale a 4-2 lead it would not relinquish.
Miles struck out two and allowed nine hits in the complete game win.
“We were out-hit by Quinnipiac,” Van Etten said. “But the couple of hits we did get, we made count.”
Yale will look to build on its momentum when it hosts Princeton today at 3 p.m. and Pennsylvania on Saturday at noon. Princeton is currently in fifth place in the Ivy League, one spot behind Yale, while Pennsylvania is last in the league.
“We need to take this weekend one game at a time,” Lebron said. “We will win if we stay within ourselves and play Yale softball.”
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