MONTCLAIR, N.J. (5/10/13) – The Kean University softball team scored five runs in the first inning and cruised to an 8-3 victory over the College of Staten Island in an NCAA Division III Softball Championship elimination game on Friday morning.
Kean jumped all over the Dolphins in the first inning. Katie Schuh and Megan Cegielski (pictured left and below) singled to begin the game. The hit was Cegielski's 64th of the year, tying the Cougars' single-season record set by Tina Rivera in 1992. An error loaded the bases with nobody out.
Kean pitcher Courtney Yard laced a single into centerfield to drive in two, and Courtney Melchionna hooked a hot shot around the thirdbase bag for a 2-RBI double. Catcher Jill Martin sent another RBI double into the left-centerfield gap to cap the Kean scoring and give the Cougars a 5-0 lead.
Things settled down after that; Yard shut down the Dolphin offense over the first five innings, allowing just two runners past second base in that time.
Click here to see a postgame interview with Cegielski, Melchionna and Coach Acker.
CSI also kept Kean off the board until the fourth. Schuh and Sandra Binkiewicz singled in that frame and Yard drove in a run with an RBI groundout, making the score 6-0.
In the sixth inning, those in attendance saw history as Cegielski knocked a linedrive down the leftfield line that hit the turf for her school-record 65th basehit of the season. The Dolphin leftfielder dove for it but missed, and the ball rolled to the corner. Cegielski motored all 240 feet around the bases for an inside-the-park homerun; the first round-tripper of her college career.
Casey Glatts and Melchionna had basehits to tack on one more for Kean in the seventh. The Dolphins added one run in the sixth and two more in the seventh to make the final score 8-3.
Melchionna, Schuh, Cegielski and Martin all finished with multiple hits in the game, and Yard led all players with three runs batted in.
Kean will advance to another elimination game on Saturday against the loser of the game between third-seeded Virginia Wesleyan College and second-seeded Susquehanna University. That matchup will begin at 1 p.m.
If victorious at 1 p.m., the Cougars will play a second game on Saturday at 5 p.m.
