It took an extra inning, but on Sunday, March 3, the Hofstra softball team took down the Georgia State University Panthers by a score of 10-8 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Pride finished the contest with a season-high 16 hits. Nine different players brought in runs for the team: Kristin Hallam, Kasey Collins, Courtney Scarpato, Alexis Goeke, Amanda Maffucci, Jaycee Ruberti, Angelina Ioppolo and Devyn Losco all scored once, while Meghan Giordano had two runs for the game.
Giordano, Ruberti and Madison McKevitt led the team in RBIs with two apiece, and Hallam, Ioppolo and Imani Myint batted in runs as well.
At the mound, Madison Burns pitched for the first four innings of play, where she struck one batter out. Scarpato relieved her in the fifth inning, and she accumulated three strikeouts of her own in the final four innings of play. Each pitcher gave up four earned runs in the match.
The Pride exploded out of the gates with three runs in the first inning, two of which were unearned after a fielding error from the Panthers. Hofstra led 3-1 going into the fourth, but Georgia State’s Skylar Mosel cracked a two-run homer to knot it up. The Pride answered back immediately with two runs of their own in the fifth, as McKevitt batted in Maffucci and Giordano.
After they brought in a run in the bottom of the fifth, the Panthers leapt ahead in the sixth thanks to a home run from Remington Hasty that scored three, followed by another homer from Jess Neadow, which brought the score to 5-8.
Hofstra regained momentum in the seventh and final inning of regulation; however, as they managed to tie up the ballgame thanks to some excellent offense from Ruberti, Ioppolo, Myint, Hallam and Losco.
After holding Georgia State scoreless at the bottom of the seventh to send the game to extra innings, Hofstra quickly capitalized on that momentum, as Giordano batted in Scarpato before Ruberti did the same for Giordano, creating a two-run cushion before the Panthers’ last opportunity to score. The Pride defense closed out the contest, as a double play and pop fly gave them the victory.
This win brings Hofstra’s record for the season to 3-10, while Georgia State slips to 2-17. The team travels next to Norfolk, Virginia, where they will match up against five different opponents in the Blue and White Classic beginning on Friday, March 8.
Image Courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
