CLERMONT, Fla. – The St. Olaf College softball team split its first two games at THE Spring Games, defeating Bowdoin College, 3-1, before falling to unbeaten Tufts University, 7-4, on Friday at Hancock Park.
St. Olaf (6-4) scored three runs early in the opener and rode a one-hitter from junior
Julie Graf to top Bowdoin (10-5). Later in the day, Tufts (12-0) built a 5-0 lead in the third inning and held of the Oles the rest of the way to remain undefeated this spring.
St. Olaf 3, Bowdoin 1 | Box Score
In the opener, the Oles jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning and Graf made the early advantage hold up. Graf struck out 13 Polar Bears and allowed just one unearned run on one hit to record her fourth victory of the season.
After the first two batters were retired, St. Olaf strung together four-straight hits in the top of the first to take a 1-0 lead.
Emily Carr started the rally with a double and scored on a single by
Hannah Matthies.
Andrea Conway and
Alison Curry followed with singles to load the bases before a line out ended the frame.
Bowdoin threatened to get the run right back, putting runners on the corners with nobody out in the bottom of the first, but Graf fanned three-straight batters to escape the jam. In the top of the second, Carr doubled in two runs to extend the Oles' lead to 3-0 after three consecutive errors by the Polar Bears filled the bases.
Graf got out of another jam in the third, leaving the bases loaded, before Bowdoin scratched across a run in the fourth on a bases-loaded walk. The junior limited the Polar Bears to just the one run in the inning after inducing a pop up to short to end the inning and allowed just one base runner in the final three innings.
Carr, Matthies and Conway each had two hits for the Oles.
Tufts 7, St. Olaf 4 | Box Score
Despite being outhit by an 11-7 margin, Tufts used multi-run innings in the second, third and fourth to build a 7-3 lead and got five innings of one-run relief from Kristi Van Meter to defeat the Oles.
Van Meter, who had allowed just one earned run in 26.1 innings (0.27 ERA) entering the game, scattered six hits in five innings of relief for the Tumbos to make the early advantage stand up.
Tufts got on the board first with two runs in the top of the second and used three-straight RBI singles in the third to stretch the lead to 5-0 before St. Olaf closed the gap back to two in the home half of the third.
Singles from
Tarah DeCroock,
Abby Grismer and
Kaleigh Santmyer loaded the bases with nobody out before Carr got hit by a pitch to bring in DeCroock. Matthies and
Jordan Melz put balls in play to drive in two more runs in the inning to make it a 5-3 game.
The Jumbos got two of the runs back in the top of the fourth, scoring on a solo home run by Mia Steinberg and a two-out wild pitch. The Oles filled the bases with one out in the fifth, but Van Meter worked out of trouble by getting a couple ground balls.
Down by three runs in its final at bat, St. Olaf generated a two-out rally as Conway walked and Melz singles.
Sydney Robson followed with an RBI single to cut the deficit to three before Van Meter got the final out.
Santmyer, Robson and DeCroock each had two hits for the Oles, who got hits from eight of their nine starters. Graf suffered the loss despite allowing just two runs (one earned) on two hits in five innings while striking out eight.
St. Olaf plays No. 9 UW-Whitewater (8:30 a.m. CDT) and the University of Chicago (10:45 a.m. CDT) on Saturday, Mar. 23 at Legends Way Field 1 in Clermont.
