MAHWAH, N.J. (4/27/13) – With an 8-0 blanking of Ramapo College in game one on Saturday the Kean University softball team clinched a spot in next week's New Jersey Athletic Conference Championship. The Cougars fell 2-1 in the second game but nevertheless claimed the conference's sixth seed.
The teams entered Saturday's regular season finale with Ramapo trailing Kean by two games in the standings, meaning if the Roadrunners managed a sweep they would leapfrog the Cougars in the standings thanks to the tiebreaker.
Game one was tense over the first scoreless innings, until Megan Cegielski led off the third with a basehit bunt down the firstbase line. After Sandra Binkiewicz sacrificed her to second, Kelly Moorehead came up with a two-out RBI single to left that gave Kean the lead.
The Cougars tacked on additional runs in the next two innings; in the fourth it came on a two-out double by Katie Schuh and in the fifth Moorehead knocked in her second run of the afternoon to make the score 3-0.
After a scoreless sixth, Kean removed all the drama from the contest with a five-run outburst highlighted by a bases-clearing 3-RBI triple to right by senior Courtney Melchionna.
Kean starter Courtney Yard earned her ninth shutout of the year and held the Roadrunners to five hits while striking out 11. In doing so, she became Kean's career strikeout leader with 330 strikeouts, topping Janice Limchak's old mark of 320 which had stood since 1989. It took the sophomore less than two seasons to erase the all-time Cougar mark.
Yard (pictured left) pitched well again in game two, but the Cougar bats were quieted until Moorehead led off the seventh inning with a double to the fence in left-center. Jill Martin knocked her in to tie the game at one, but Ramapo pushed one across in the home half of the seventh to walk-off with a victory. Yard added nine more K's to her total but was outdueled by Nicole Schneider.
Kean will take on top-seeded Rowan University on Tuesday in the first round of the NJAC Tournament at a time to be announced.
