WINTER HAVEN, Fla. (3/18/15) – Junior Tonianne DeMatteo made a game-saving catch to end the No. 12 Kean University softball team's 5-4 victory over Messiah College on Wednesday. The Cougars went on to drop the second game of the day, 12-0, to St. Norbert College.
After the first two innings in the Messiah game both teams' starters, Courtney Yard and Claressa Mees, had been dominant in the circle; neither pitcher had allowed a hit.
But Kean ran into some good luck in the third. Cayleen Rizo walked and Emily Sabo singled to start the rally with one out, and then Kean's fortune shone through. Yard hit into a fielder's choice where everyone was safe, loading the bases with one out. Then Emily Bissonnette's hit could have been a double play, but it deflected off the pitcher's glove and into left field for a 2-RBI single. It came after a nine pitch at-bat for the sophomore.
With two outs, Katie Garbarino knocked a basehit into the hole that went in and out of the shortstop's glove and allowed two more Cougar runners to score, making the score 4-0. Kean had made Mees throw 77 pitches in the first three innings.
But the luck evened out a bit, as a bad hop in the fourth inning helped the Falcons to score two runs and cut the Kean lead in half to 4-2.
In the fifth, Messiah scored again when Carrie Fix doubled and Tina Lehman drove her in. The Falcons tested Rizo at short with three scalding drives toward her in the inning, but the freshman was able to handle them all to help keep Kean in front 4-3.
In the sixth, Messiah manufactured another run when Amanda Jones singled and stole second. With Jones running, Brooke Pompeo laid down a sac bunt. Jones never stopped running around third, and after Kean got Pompeo at first, Jones came around to score the game's tying run and sent the game knotted up into the seventh.
In the final frame, Kean copied the Falcons' blueprint to start when Sabo singled and stole second as the leadoff batter. Not needing any fancy stuff, Yard simply drove her in with a line drive single in the left-centerfield gap to put the Cougars back on top.
In their last licks, Messiah got the tying run to second with two outs, and lifted a shallow flyball down the rightfield line. Covering a ton of ground, DeMatteo made a sprawling catch for the game's final out and ended a highly entertaining game.
Courtney Yard is now 4-0 on the year. She struck out two batters in the first game.
In the second game, Saint Norbert scored eight runs in the first inning against the Cougars. The Green Knights had five hits and were aided by three Kean errors in the frame.
The Cougars could not get any traction in the second game, though Sabo (pictured left) went 2-for-2 with a triple in the second slot of the lineup.
Pitchers Haley Grunwald and Morgan Rusch combined for the shutout, and Taylor Long, Leigh Grall, Jess DeMeusse and Amy McBride all had two hits for the Green Knights.
The Cougars will wrap up their spring break trip with a single game against Western Connecticut State University at 4 p.m. tomorrow at the Winter Haven Diamondplex.
