KISSIMMEE, FLA. – The Cortland softball team, ranked 18th nationally in Div. III, opened its season with a 1-0 win over Utica and a 7-3 loss to 16th-ranked Wheaton College (Mass.) at the Osceola Sports Complex.
The Red Dragons continue their 10-game Florida trip with games Monday versus Hamilton College at 9 a.m. and Dickinson College at 1:30 p.m.
Cortland 1, Utica 0 Junior
Alexandrea Flint (Dalton/Keshequa) threw a four-hit shutout in the win over the Pioneers. She struck out one batter and walked two. Flint outdueled Utica's Brittany Meka and Abby Monroe, who combined to allow only four hits and two walks with five strikeouts. Meka went the first three innings and gave up two hits with two strikeouts. Monroe took the loss after allowing one run on two hits and two walks in three frames. She struck out three.
Cortland scored the game's lone run in bizarre fashion in the bottom of the fourth.
Kaleigh Churchill (Camillus/West Genesee) hit a leadoff triple, and the Utica pitcher, thinking the play was over, started walking toward her dugout to hand something to a coach. The ball, however, was not dead, and Churchill alertly took off to an unguarded home plate. She was officially credited with a steal of home on the play.
The Red Dragons had a chance to extend their lead in the bottom of the sixth as they loaded the bases on two hit batters and a walk, but a strikeout ended the threat.
Each team left eight runners on base. Utica (0-1) had runners stranded on third base in the third and fifth innings, and finished the game with runners on first and second in the seventh before a fielder's choice ended the contest.
Wheaton 7, Cortland 3 Cortland took a 2-1 lead in the top of the second on
Rosie Phillips' (Geneva/Our Lady of Mercy) two-run double, but the Lyons tied the game in the bottom of the inning on two-out singles by Mary DeMoura and Emma Hart and a passed ball.
Cortland grabbed the lead again at 3-2 in the fourth on a
Jamie Corradina (Dobbs Ferry) RBI fielder's choice, but Wheaton responded in its next at bat with a Hart fielder's choice to knot the game at 3-3. Wheaton broke open the game with a four-run fifth that featured an Emily Bouthillette two-run double and a Katelyn Andrade RBI single.
Allison Cox earned the win for the Lyons with a complete-game five-hitter. She struck out two and walked two.
Jamie Lachall (Philadelphia, PA/Sun Valley) took the loss for Cortland. She allowed six runs, three earned, in four innings.
Sam Van Dorn (Medford/Patchogue-Medford) threw two innings in her collegiate debut and allowed three hits and one unearned run.
Andrea Schoonmaker (Marlboro) finished 2-for-3 for the Red Dragons. Marissa Timoteo was 3-for-4, while Caroline Fairbanks and Morgan Walsh each went 2-for-4, for the Lyons (2-2).
