UNION, N.J. (4/11/15) – The Kean University softball team won two wild walkoff wins against No. 5 Rowan University on Saturday. Alexis D'Aloisio hit a two-run homer with two outs in game one and the Cougars won 3-2 in extra innings in game two. The Profs came into Saturday's doubleheader with a 25-0 record.
Kean was trailing 1-0 and down to its final strike in the first game. They had managed just one hit all day, but did have the game-tying run on base after Emily Bissonnette was hit by a pitch. With a 1-2 count, D'Aloisio lifted a long drive down the leftfield line. The only question was whether it would stay fair. The ball stayed true and landed well past the fence for the senior's first career homerun.
The entire Kean team poured onto the field to celebrate the wild come-from behind victory.
Cougar starter Courtney Yard escaped a bases-loaded, no-out jam to start the first game by getting bouncers to Cayleen Rizo at short and Tiffany Varriello at first. Catcher Kayla Parker converted both plays at the plate and Tonianne DeMatteo made a running catch in foul territory to end the inning.
The only true mistake Yard made in game one was a solo homerun to Shilah Snead in the third inning. Otherwise, the senior allowed just two hits while striking out nine. Yard (pictured left) retired 10 in a row to end the game, spanning the fourth inning through the seventh. Her gutsy 151-pitch performance gave the Cougars a chance to win in their final turn at-bat.
It is the second time in three years that the Cougars have stopped an NJAC rival's undefeated season. In 2013, Kean topped Montclair State in a game at Cougar Field where the Red Hawks had entered 31-0.
Game Two
Yard returned to the circle in the second game of the day and twirled three scoreless innings to start it off.
In the home half of the third, Rizo started a rally with an infield hit and went all the way to third on Emily Sabo's subsequent bunt single, putting two runners on for Kean. MacKenzie Valeriani walked to load the bases, but Rowan got two outs before D'Aloisio strode back to the plate.
The Tolland, Connecticut native scalded the first pitch she saw into centerfield, driving in two runners and giving the Cougars a 2-0 lead. Kean had scored four runs on the day at that point, and D'Aloisio had driven in each one.
Sabo tuned a nifty double play in the middle of a Rowan rally in fourth inning. She tagged the runner going to second base, spun around a fired to first to get two. But the Profs did manage to tie the score on an RBI single by Alyssa Sims.
In the fifth, the Cougars turned to pitcher Stephanie Gilbert. The senior responded by tossing four shutout innings, including the eighth when a runner was placed on second to start.
Gilbert did get some help from her defense: Sabo snared two hot shots in the seventh to help keep Rowan off the board in that inning. Yard – now playing first – held a Prof runner at third base with a smart play on a squibber in the same inning.
In the eighth, Rizo cut down the runner at home with a great pick and throw on a play up the middle. That helped hold the Profs scoreless and set up Kean's game-winning rally.
In the eighth, Amanda Berezny was placed on second base, and Parker dropped down a textbook sacrifice bunt to move her to third base. Rowan elected to walk both D'Aloisio and Brooke Ennis to load the bases.
The strategy backfired, as pinch-hitter Kacie Worswick worked a five-pitch walkoff walk to force in the game-winning run without a hit in the inning.
Ennis finished the day 3-for-5 at the plate. Gilbert earned the win after her stellar work in relief.
The Cougars will be back in action tomorrow for an NJAC doubleheader at William Paterson University beginning at 1 p.m.
