On Wednesday, the Yale women’s softball team hosted UMass-Amherst on their home turf. In what was the Bulldogs’ first home game this season, Yale suffered a 16–6 defeat against the Minutemen in just five innings of action.
“Massachusetts hit the ball really well as well as dropped a lot of dinkers in behind our infield,” infielder Hannah Brennan ’15 said. “We executed well and battled back when UMass had a big inning, but it just wasn’t enough.”
In the first inning, the Bulldogs jumped out to a quick 2–0 start over UMass, thanks to captain Sarah Onorato’s ’15 single to center field, which scored outfielder Sydney Glover ’17. Once Onorato was on base, catcher Camille Weisenbach ’17 hit a single to bring Onorato in to home. Yale also stopped the Minutemen from completing a single run in the same inning.
Unfortunately, Yale lost its momentum shortly thereafter and recorded zero hits in the second inning, while allowing the Minutemen to cross home plate four times.
In the third inning, Weisenbach advanced to second base and Onorato to third, but neither was able to complete a run. Massachusetts, however, picked up the pace and recorded eight runs and eight hits, including two from first baseman Bridget Lemire alone. By the end of the third inning, the Minutemen had gained a 10-point lead on Yale and left the Bulldogs in the dust, trailing 12–2.
However, the Bulldogs did not give up when batting or fielding and showed great resilience even after the Minutemen’s big inning, according to pitcher Francesca Casalino ’18.
“Everyone did great hitting and we passed the bat that inning,” Casalino said. “Overall it was a tough fight to the end.”
Though Yale attempted a comeback with four runs and three hits in the fourth inning, the Minutemen kept their lead with four runs and three hits of their own, leading 16–6 at the end of the inning. By NCAA rules, Massachusetts needed a lead margin of eight runs after five innings to end the game, and the Minutemen delivered exactly that. In the fifth and final inning, UMass did not allow a single run from the Bulldogs and forced the game to a 16–6 finish.
Despite the challenging 16–6 loss against UMass, the Elis feel as though it was a good experience to have prior to heading into next weekend’s Ancient Eight matchups.
“Today really got us prepared for this weekend though so we feel good going into another Ivy weekend,” Brennan said.
On Friday and Saturday, the Bulldogs will face two Ivy competitors: Columbia and Penn. Both sets of matchups will be doubleheaders on the Bulldogs’ home turf, with the Columbia contest beginning at 2 p.m. on Friday and the Penn matchup at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.