The Cougars move to 10-2 on the season, while Wellesley evens
its record at 2-2 in advance of its spring break trip to Florida
which begins on Saturday.
In both games, the team that got the better pitching performance
got the victory. That was the case in game one for Clark, who got a
complete game, three-hit outing from junior hurler Sarah Carter
(Worcester, Mass.). After yielding a leadoff homerun to Jessie
Haladyna (St. John's Fla.), Carter settled down and allowed
only two hits the rest of the way, retiring the last seven batters
she faced.
Darcey Kurashige-Elliott (Berkeley, Calif.) did a great deal of the
damage for the Cougars offensively, going 3-for-3 with three RBI
and a long homerun to left field. Chelsea Proulx (Franklin, N.H.)
actually tied the game in the bottom of the first when she singled
to left, scoring Mel Melkonian (Worcester, Mass.).
Clark broke the game open with a four-run third inning, highlighted
by Kurashige-Elliott's roundtripper and accompanied by a run
scored on a passed ball and a throwing error.
The Cougars would score two more in the fifth on Wellesley errors,
and then grabbed a game-ending eight run lead in the bottom of the
sixth when run scoring singles from Kurashige-Elliott and Stefanie
Kettenacker (Hastings-on-the-Hudson, N.Y.) gave Clark a 9-1
lead.
Game two started off as a pitching duel between Cougar sophomore
Meghan Lennon (Charlton, Mass.) and Wellesley Freshman Lauren
Goldfarb (Albuquerque, N.M.). Heading into the sixth inning,
Wellesley had just three just and Clark had just one.
Things all changed in the sixth when the Blue chased Lennon after
connecting on five straight singles, giving Wellesley a 2-0 lead on
an Alex Warren (Delta, B.C.) base knock.
Mara Blesoff (Oak Park, Ill.) drove in two more on a single off of
reliever Nicole Meuse (Hudson, Mass.) and then a Haladyna base hit
drove in another pushing the Wellesley lead to 5-0.
Clark cut the edge to 5-1 in the bottom of the frame on an RBI
groundout by Lauren Blake (Oakland, Maine) but could get no closer.
Wellesley tacked on an insurance run in the seventh on back-to-back
doubles by Sinta Cebrian (Seattle, Wash.) and Warren.
The Cougars return to the diamond on Saturday when they host
Bridgewater State beginning at 12 noon. Wellesley returns to
action on Sunday at the National Training Center in Clermont, FL,
where they will compete during Spring Break. The Blue open
with a 3:30pm game against Western Connecticut State, followed by a
5:30 matchup with Morrisville State.