By Tim Robertson
The state of Georgia lacked southern hospitality last weekend as Hofstra softball dropped all five of its games in the NFCA Leadoff Classic by a combined eight runs.
The 4-8 Pride ran its losing streak to six on Sunday after it blew two leads against a winless Seton Hall squad. Two unearned runs by the Pirates and a couple walks and two hit-by-pitches propelled the Pirates to a 5-3 victory.
Seton Hall moved to 1-10 with the win.
For Hofstra, junior Courtney Oliver singled in a run scored on a wild pitch, finishing 2-3 from the plate. Michele DePasquale, the freshman from Waterford, N.J., singled and registered what would represent the Pride’s final run of the game.
Sophomore Melissa Hodge suffered her first loss of the season. After relieving Oliver, she gave up three two-out runs in the fifth inning. Hodge lasted two-thirds of an inning. Seton Hall also capitalized on Hodge’s control troubles, as the Pirates used the four free bases to mount a comeback and seal a win.
Leaving a game total of six on base, the Pride stranded runners on the corners in the bottom of the fifth, and couldn’t muster a hit or get the ball past the infield in the final two innings.
Pirate pitcher Ashley Constantini threw six innings of relief and earned the win, giving up one run on three hits.
Losses in games four and five of the streak came against better opponents than the Seton Hall. The Pride tangled on Saturday with the University of North Carolina and Auburn University.
In the first game of the doubleheader against Auburn, Hofstra and the Tigers battled for a scoreless six innings until freshman Stefanie Feinstein knocked in Carolann Lubach on a one-out double. DePasquale then mirrored Feinstein with a double of her own, allowing Feinstein to cross the plate and giving the Pride a two-run lead.
It didn’t last long.
Auburn knocked starting pitcher Oliver out of the game on a leadoff single by Sara Ghezzi, who later scored, handing Oliver her first earned run against of the game.
In a 2-1 game, the Pride still had control – until an Auburn freshman pinch-hit.
With two on, two out, two strikes on the batter and Joanna Kralowetz in the circle, Auburn’s Whitney Wyatt changed the face of the game with a three-run blast, giving the Tigers a 4-2 lead that successfully held off a possible Pride comeback.
Hofstra put runners on first and third in the top-half of the seventh, with senior Ashley Lane, last year’s CAA player of the year, at the plate.
She struck out looking to end the game, the ninth strikeout of the game for Auburn’s Anna Thompson, who went the distance in the win.
Against the Tar Heels less than 90 minutes later, the Pride couldn’t recover from back-to-back solo homeruns in the first inning by Jennifer Jacobs and Cassie Palmer.
Hofstra looked like it could cut into the deficit, if not take the lead in the fourth. The Pride loaded the bases with just one out, but Amber Johnson struck out two consecutive batters and preserved the 2-0 lead.
The Pride again juiced the bases full with one out in the sixth. After relief pitcher Lisa Norris forced home a run when she hit a batter, the Pride grounded out twice to end the inning.
North Carolina tacked on an insurance run in the top of the seventh, giving them the 3-1 victory.
A Feb. 23 doubleheader showed what the Pride defense is capable of doing, as it competed for 14 innings with two nationally ranked teams, giving up just two runs combined. Unfortunately, for Hofstra, no runners came home in the same 14 innings.
The University of Michigan couldn’t earn a run on its own in the nightcap, but managed to score on a Pride error in the second inning.
Kayleigh Lotti pitched a complete game and allowed five hits, but no earned runs. The Pride fell 1-0 to the 13th-ranked Wolverines.
Earlier in the day, Southern Illinois University and Hofstra put up blanks for the first six innings of the game.
Playing small ball in the seventh, the 24th-ranked Salukis worked hard to score the only run they would need utilizing a sacrifice bunt to move the winning run to third, then grounding to short to score the games only run.
Oliver tossed 4.2 innings of scoreless softball giving up just one hit before Kralowetz replaced her. Kralowetz took the loss.
Currently, she is 1-2 on the year. The Pride returns next week to Florida – where they went 4-2 in February – to play in the Adidas Invitational.