CORTLAND, N.Y. – Playing its first home games of the season, the Cortland softball team split a non-league doubleheader with RPI. The Red Dragons won the first game in five innings, 10-2, before losing the second game, 6-1. 
 
Cortland (14-10) will host Plattsburgh Friday and Potsdam Saturday in SUNYAC doubleheaders. 
 
Cortland 10, RPI 2 (5 inn.) 
 
Every starter registered at least one hit as part of Cortland's 14-hit attack. The game was called after the top of the fifth due to the eight-run rule. Gina Meyers (Liverpool) went 3-for-3 with a double and two RBI, Alyssa Finno (Hurley/Kingston) homered and finished 2-for-3 with three RBI and two runs and Tori Reich (Cornwall) was 2-for-3 with two RBI and two runs. Halle Wright (Ballston Spa) was 2-for-3 with an RBI and Julz Koch (New City/Clarkstown South) was 1-for-2 with a walk and two runs. 
 
Karlee Weeden (Maybrook/Valley Central) pushed her record to 7-2 after allowing four hits and two runs, one earned, in five innings. She struck out three and walked three. 
 
Cortland scored in each of its four innings at the plate. The Red Dragons went up 2-0 in the first on a throwing error following a Meyers double and a Wright RBI groundout. Meyers singled in a run in the second to make it 3-0. 
 
RPI scored in the third on Gabby Comeau's two-out RBI single. The Red Dragons, however, scored five times in the bottom of the inning on a Finno RBI single, a Reich two-run single, a Brooke Scheibe (Sayville) RBI fielder's choice and a Meyers RBI single. Finno's two-run homer in the fourth extended the Cortland lead to 10-1. 
 
RPI almost avoided the eight-run rule in the top of the fifth. The Engineers started the inning with a walk, a Jessica Torch single and a Catherine Worthington RBI double to make it 10-2. RPI tried a squeeze bunt on the next at-bat, but Cortland catcher Koch fielded the bunt in front of home plate and tagged the runner trying to score. The play then turned into an unconventional double play as the batter attempted to go to second. Koch threw to second baseman Wright, who then threw back home to Koch to retire the runner who was originally on second base trying to score. The next hitter grounded out to end the game. 
 
RPI 6, Cortland 1 
 
Cortland dropped the nightcap despite out-hitting RPI, 10-6. The teams each scored in the first - RPI when Worthington stole third on the front end of a double steal and scored on a throwing error during the play, and Cortland when Elaina Ornstein (Yorktown Heights/Yorktown) singled, stole second, went to third on a groundout and scored on Wright's RBI groundout to second.

The game remained 1-1 until the top of the fifth. RPI (15-13) recorded five of its six hits in the inning and plated five runs. With two outs and one on, Ryleigh Greenwald walked, Torch bunted for a single, and Worthington hit a two-run single to left center to give the Engineers a 3-1 lead. Erin Askins followed with an RBI double and Comeau hit a two-run single to give RPI a 6-1 advantage. 
 
Cortland threatened in the bottom of the sixth as Wright led off with a single and McKenna Barry (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) hit a double to put runners on second and third. RPI starter Erika Holowka escaped the jam with a strikeout, groundout and pop-up, and she kept Cortland off the board in the seventh despite allowing singles to Scheibe and Ornstein. 
 
Holowka scattered 10 hits over seven innings for the win. She struck out five and did not walk anyone. Isabel Milazzo (Elmira/Elmira Notre Dame) took the loss after giving up six runs, five earned, in four and two thirds innings. She allowed only one run on one hit over the first four innings, including a stretch of retiring 12 straight batters, before RPI's rally in the fifth. Lindsey Richards (Liverpool/Cicero-North Syracuse) gave up only two walks and struck out three over the final two and a third innings. 
 
Ornstein finished 4-for-4 with a run scored for Cortland, and she reached base in all six of her plate appearances during the doubleheader (1-for-1 with a walk in Game 1). Reich and Koch each went 1-for-3. Askins finished 2-for-4 with an RBI and Worthington was 1-for-2 with two walks, two RBI and two runs for the guests.