PHILADELPHIA – For the first time in program history, the University of the Sciences softball team has swept Dominican.
The Devils erased two deficits in both games, before holding off the Chargers, 5-4 and 6-4, to accomplish the feat in the program's final season.
The trio of Megan Master, Paige Schlechter and Olivia Quercia combined to allow just four earned runs across 14 innings, with Master and Schlechter picking up wins and Quercia a save.
Game One
Master stranded runners on second and third with one out, first with a strikeout and then with a game-ending groundout, to secure the 5-4 triumph.
This came after she had stranded runners on second and third in sixth, when Dominican had just gotten within one.
Master went the distance for her third complete game victory of the season, working around 10 hits to give up just two earned runs. The graduate student tied a career-high with eight strikeouts, while walking two.
Each team led twice, with Dominican opening the scoring in the first.
Gabriella Polera's leadoff double in the second led to two runs after Danielle Jones followed with a single, and the two came in on an RBI single by Nina Cencetti and an RBI groundout by Gabrielle Simms.
The Chargers would come right back with two runs of their own in the third, when an error extended the inning.
USciences would take advantage of multiple errors itself though, the first one of which extended the fourth for Simms' two-out, two-RBI double after Lauren Del Giudice had extended the frame with a two-out walk.
The second one led to the game-winning run scoring in the fifth, loading the bases for Jones who came through with the eventual game-winning RBI on a single that scored Abbigail Markee, who had led off with a walk.
Jones and Markee both finished 2-for-3, with Markee also walking.
Del Giudice reached base in all three at-bats with two hits and a base on balls.
Simms' two-RBI double was notably the 25th of her career, now tied for second in program history.
Game Two
Schlechter and Quercia combined to surrender just three hits, with Schlechter giving up two in her four frames before Quercia came on to allow just one in her three innings.
No runner reached scoring position on Quercia, whose performance earned her a second save on the year.
Once again, both teams led twice with Dominican opening the scoring in the first, despite not recording a hit.
This time USciences wasted no time in taking its first lead as a Simms leadoff walk and Ashley Steiner one-out single led to them both scoring, on a Taylor Hamm double and Polera sacrifice fly.
The Chargers came right back with two runs of their own in the second though, both of which were unearned.
USciences led off the third with three straight hits, which led to the eventual game-winning run capping a three-run frame. Steiner led off with a single before back-to-back doubles by Hamm and Polera put the Devils on top for good.
Back-to-back outs were recorded, but Cencetti came through with the game-winning RBI on a two-out single. She would later single home Jones, who led off with a single of her own, for an unneeded insurance run in the fifth.
That capped a 3-for-3 performance for Cencetti, her second career three-hit game.
Stiener and Hamm had multiple this too, with Steiner scoring twice and Hamm joining Cencetti and Polera in driving in two runs.
Dominican could only get as close as 5-4 in the fourth, when the Chargers recorded their only two hits against Schlechter.
Up Next
University of the Sciences returns home this Saturday to host Nyack for a 12 p.m. doubleheader.
