UNION, N.J. (3/20/14) – The No. 25 Kean University softball team did not allow a run and racked up 20 hits in a dominant sweep of their home opener against Centenary College on Thursday. The Cougars won 3-0 in game one before taking a 10-0 run-rule game in the nightcap.
Kean is now 10-2 on the year while the Cyclones are still looking for their first victory.
Game One
Emily Bissonnette helped get Kean on the board with a stinging double over the right fielder's head in the second inning of game one. Jill Martin singled and stole a base, and with two outs Emily Sabo beat out a base-hit bunt of an RBI that gave the Cougars a 1-0 lead.
Starting pitcher Courtney Yard cruised through the first four innings – only a two-out double in the second prevented her from being perfect over that stretch.
Martin started the bottom of the fourth with a double off the centerfield wall. Megan Cegielski and Sabo followed with basehit singles to score Martin and put the Cougars up two, but Kean left the bases loaded for the second time in four innings.
In the fifth, Martin blasted a 2-out homer to the opposite field that bounced off the Carole Hynes Fieldhouse for her first homerun of the year.
Yard showed tremendous poise by pitching around a pair of Kean errors in the sixth inning to strand runners on second and third and keep her shutout intact. She finished with 11 strikeouts in her seven innings of work as she earned her second shutout of the year.
Game Two
Kean jumped all over Centenary from the start of the second game. Cegielski, Sabo, Kelly Moorehead and Amanda Berezny all hit singles as the Cougars batted around. But Kate Smith had the most impressive shot of the inning.
On the first pitch she ever saw at Cougar Field, the freshman doubled off the top of the wall. The ball ricocheted against a post that protrudes two inches above the rest of the fence and just missed going over the wall for her first collegiate homer.
Yard and Berezny had RBIs in the second to move the lead to 7-0.
With two runners on in the fourth, Moorehead crushed an opposite-field home run to nearly the same spot as Martin's game-one dinger. That gave the Cougars the necessary cushion to end the game early in five innings.
Rebecca Rotola (pictured left) pitched four scoreless innings to earn the win and Stephanie Gilbert shut the door in the fifth to complete the double-shutout. Both pitchers struck out one batter apiece.
Kean will return to Cougar Field on Saturday when the team hosts the College of Staten Island beginning at noon.
