FAIRFAX, Va. - The Saint Joseph's softball team wrapped up the regular season with wins in two of its final three games at George Mason on Sunday.
After falling 3-1 in the continuation of Saturday's game, the Hawks battled back for a 6-4 win in eight innings in game two and won the nightcap, 6-0.
With the wins, the Hawks finished the season at 14-8 in the Atlantic 10 and earned the third seed in this week's Atlantic 10 Championship and will face sixth seed George Mason at 2:30 p.m. This year's confernce tournament runs Wednesday through Saturday at George Mason's GMU Softball Complex
In the opener, George Mason jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but the Hawks battled back in the top of the seventh.
Getting a run back as Caela Abadie scored on a sacrifice fly by Sarah Ostaszewski, Saint Joseph's got the tying run to the plate with two outs. Unfortunately for the Hawks, George Mason got a strikeout to end the game.
In game two, SJU jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first, but the Patriots battled back to open a 4-2 lead.
The Hawks answered back with a run in the sixth on a solo home run by Abadie, then tied it in the seventh as Taryn Grober scored on a RBI single by Jancarla Herrera.
In the eighth, Abadie and Madeline Brunck scored on a fielding error off a ball struck by Molly Kapala to open a 6-4 lead.
Sophomore Ashley Ventura wrapped up the complete game win, working around a two-out single to pick up the victory. Ventura moved to 14-12 overall with the win as struck out seven.
Behind a 3-for-4 performance at the plate, with two runs scored and two runs batted in by Abadie and a complete-game three-hit shutout by junior Madison Clarke, the Hawks took the final game, 6-0.
A solo home run by Abadie in the fourth gave SJU a 1-0 edge, while RBIs by Kapala and Amanda Kulp in the fifth made it a three-run edge.
Adding three insurance more runs in the seventh pushed the edge to 6-0, while Clarke capped the day with a clean bottom half of the inning to improve to 7-7 on the year as she finished with a game-high five strikeouts.
