By Jeffrey Werner – STAFF WRITER
Hofstra Pride softball could not have asked for a better ending to a successful 2015 season. The Pride claimed a 11-5 victory over the Cougars of the College of Cha
rleston at College at Charleston Softball Stadium on Saturday, which capped the series sweep, a nine-game winning streak, and a 34-11-1 overall record for Hofstra.
Morgan Lashley got the start, her final start in the regular season in a Pride uniform. Lashley didn’t get off to the start she was hoping for, she gave up a 2-0 lead pitching in the third inning.
Head coach Larissa Anderson pulled Lashley in favor of her fellow senior teammate Taylor Pirone, ending Lashley’s day at two and two-thirds innings pitched, four hits, two earned runs and two strikeouts.
“I wasn’t very happy with our pitching staff,” coach Anderson explained. “Morgan was doing really well today, but they were getting on time with her. So that was the reason for the change.”
Pirone kept the Cougars from scoring anymore runs until the fifth, the Cougars scored three runs on three consecutive hits. Pirone fought through and got out of the fifth without any more damage. She shutout the Cougars in the sixth and seventh to claim her 15th and final win in the regular season.
Michaela Transue, who has been batting in the ninth spot for most of the season, found herself in the fifth spot, switching with Brielle Pietrafesa.
Also, playing catcher was Brittany Allocca instead of senior Erin Trippi. Freshman Nikki Michalowski replaced Allocca at first base.
The Pride showed off their offensive power with their bats early in the game. After trailing 1-0 in the first, sophomore second basemen Lacey Clark smashed the ball over the left field fence for her fourth home run on the season to tie the game up at 1-1.
Pietrafesa came up to bat later in the second inning and lined the ball out of the park for her sixth round trip of the 2015 campaign and drove in two runners to give the Pride a 4-1 lead.
With all the young guns showing off their offensive power, senior Allocca worked a 2-1 count that would lead to a pitch she drove the ball to the same place Pietrafesa and Clark hit their home runs. The grand slam was Allocca’s fifth dinger of the year and doubled the run total for the Pride to eight.
Even though Hofstra had enough runs to win the game, they refused to show mercy to their conference opponents. Senior third basemen Kim Smith left one final mark on the season when she hit the ball into right centerfield in the fourth inning, she scored Chloe Fitzgerald and extended the Pride lead to eight runs.
While Pietrafesa was finding success in the ninth spot, Transue did not adjust to hitting further up in the lineup.
Transue was 0-for-2 when she came up to bat in the sixth with Smith on base. Transue drove the ball in deep right centerfield for a double and brought Smith home for a much-needed run that would extend Hofstra’ lead back to five.
Rounding off the run production was Fitzgerald. In the seventh inning, Fitzgerald singled the ball up the middle to score in Michalowski, pushing the score to 11-5, and killing any hope the Cougars had of making a comeback in the seventh.
Now that the regular season is behind them, the Pride can focus on the CAA tournament, with their first opponent being Elon, who the Pride took two out of three games during the season. The Pride softball program, head coach Larissa Anderson, and their fans should be ecstatic for the start of the post-season, and they have right to be.
