April 1, 2013

SOFTBALL | Red Falls to Yale, Sweeps Brown

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Cornell softball stepped onto Niemand-Robison Field this weekend to play four games in its Ivy League season opener against Yale and Brown. Saturday afternoon, Cornell played Yale in two games, but was unable to come out strongly to start the season. The Bulldogs earned two wins, beating the Red 7-2 in the first game, which went into extra innings, and 7-5 in a normal nine-inning game. However, the Red was able to come back in its two games against Brown on Sunday and Monday, winning 8-5 and 9-6 consecutively.

In its first game against Yale, Cornell started with a 2-0 lead in the first inning, but was unable to take advantage of it and fell short with the bases loaded. Junior pitcher Alyson Onyon pitched 12 out of the 13 innings; however, she gave up a total of 13 hits in her 12.1 innings of work. When the Bulldogs scored five runs in the last inning, Onyon was taken out of the exceptionally long game.

In game two, Cornell didn’t let its first loss bring down the level of play. Both Yale and Cornell went back and forth in maintaining the lead, but Cornell was unable to score the final run it needed to win in the eighth inning and left the bases loaded.

In its first game against Brown Sunday, Cornell was able to keep the Bears off the board until the sixth inning, maintaining a score of 6-0 until Brown was able to score a run. After scoring that first run, Brown came back with an impressive four-run recovery, although the team was not able to beat the Red’s final score of eight runs.

In the second game, originally scheduled for Sunday but postponed until Monday due to rain, Cornell took an early lead of 4-0 after junior Christina Villalon hit a homerun with the bases loaded. After a score of 9-1 in the fourth inning, the Bears came back with four runs in the sixth inning to end the game with a score of 9-6. The Red maintained its early lead throughout the game, and came out with a sweep against Brown.

Coming into this weekend, junior Lauren Bucolo was named the Ivy League co-Player of the Week after her impressive work as an offensive player. With one of the best batting averages on the team, she was able to put away two doubles in the game against Brown on Sunday and scored in the second game on Monday.

Overall, Cornell finished the weekend with a 12-14 record and 2-2 record in league play. Although the Red was unable to find its footing in the first two games against Yale on Saturday, the team came together against Brown and pulled out the first two wins of its Ivy League season.

Original Author: Anna Fasman