Softball: Late dingers headline weekend games

“I hit the first pitch she threw me,” Peyton said in an email after the game. “I knew she would try and get ahead because she had walked two people already.”

The grand slam was her second home run of the day, after a three-run blast in the first inning of Princeton’s earlier game against Rhode Island. Despite getting out to early leads in both games, the Tigers ultimately fell victim to late surges by their opponents, and ended up losing 7-4 to Rhode Island (4-11) and 10-6 to to Maryland (16-6).

Saturday’s contests were two of the five games that Princeton played this past weekend in the Maryland Round Robin tournament held in College Park, Md. Princeton finished 1-4 in the four-team event, losing twice to Maryland, splitting a pair with Rhode Island and losing once to Kent State (9-11).

The first two games on Friday against Kent State and Maryland shared similar characteristics with Saturday’s contests, as late runs by both opposing teams left Princeton with very few outs to try to stage a comeback.

After being down 5-2 against Kent State in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Tigers scored three runs with five singles to tie the game at 5-5 and force extra innings. But the Golden Flashes responded with a four-run eighth inning, capped by a two-out, three-run homer. The four-run difference proved to be too much for Princeton, as another comeback fell short, 9-7.

Against Maryland, Princeton got off to a good start against Terrapins ace Kendra Knight. It seemed that the Tigers were unaware of the fact that Knight ranked fourth in the Atlantic Coast Conference with a 1.79 ERA last year, as they pieced together a handful of hits in the third inning.

Starting with a leadoff double by senior outfielder Nicole Ontiveros, the Tigers went on to score three runs with help from the Terps’ sloppy defense and two more singles to bring the score to 3-1. Knight finally got out of the inning and re-established her dominance with back-to-back strikeouts to set the tone for the rest of the game. From then on, the Tigers were only able to muster one more hit off of Knight and ended up losing 7-3.

Despite losing again to Maryland on Saturday, Peyton’s grand slam gave the Tigers momentum going into their final game on Sunday, which saw three more Princeton homers in an eight-run fourth inning. Freshman pitcher Sarah McGowan opened up the slugfest with her first collegiate home run, driving in three runs. Classmate Alyssa Schmidt followed suit later in the inning with a two-run blast of her own. Then Peyton came up big once again with another two-run homer to give the Tigers a massive lead. Rhode Island added some runs later on but could not overcome the eight-run deficit. Princeton went on to win 9-4, earning its second victory of the season.

The Tigers hope to continue their power hitting and extend their win streak when they head to California this weekend to play 11 games over spring break.