CLERMONT, FL (March 23, 2024) – The Jumbo softball team split a pair of games on Saturday in Florida as they returned to action after Friday's two contests were rained out.
Senior pitcher
Sophia DiCocco threw a four-hit shutout as Tufts defeated Union College 4-0 in Saturday's first game. Then the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater scored in the top of the seventh to tie the game and defeated the Jumbos 4-1 in extra innings.
Tufts is 9-3 heading into its final day of Florida games on Sunday.
Tufts 4, Union 0
DiCocco struck out nine and did not walk a batter in her gem of a start. She pitched three perfect innings before Union's Riley Callahan led off the fourth with a single for the Garnet Chargers' first hit. DiCocco did not allow more than one runner on base in any inning.
Union received a good start from junior Autumn Duff (7 IP, 9 H, 3 ER). The Jumbos would get their first run of the day off her in the top of the third after two were out.
Bela Jimenez,
Josie Steinberg and
Keriann Slayton hit consecutive singles with Jimenez scoring on Slayton's RBI base hit.
Tufts senior
Michelle Adelman sliced a hard-hit line drive down the right field line in the top of the fourth and zipped around the bases for an inside-the-park home run and a 2-0 Jumbo lead.
A pair of Union errors and an rbi single by
Kaitlyn Perucci put Tufts up 3-0 in the fifth. For the fourth Tufts run in the sixth, first-year
Sarah Cullen smartly stole an uncovered second base without a pitch being thrown and then scored on a Jimenez single.
Jimenez finished 2 for 4 with two runs and an rbi for Tufts, while Adelman had two hits with a run and an rbi and Perucci went 2 for 4 with an rbi.
Callahan had two of Union's four hits.
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater 4, Tufts 1 (9 inn.)
Tufts'
Sky Johnson and the undefeated Warhawks' Maddy Anderson waged a scoreless battle in the circle through four innings. Tufts had left the bases loaded in the third.
The Jumbos would strike however in the fifth. Steinberg hit an infield single, went to second on a ground ball and scored on a base hit by Slayton.
The game stayed 1-0 Tufts until the seventh. Johnson had allowed only one UWW hit until that point – a Kaitlyn Weidemann double in the fourth. In the seventh though, Maggie Ward led off with a bunt single and scored when Tufts made an error trying to catch her advancing to third on a sacrifice by the next batter. Tufts went 1-2-3 against reliever Brooke Hock in the bottom of the seventh and the game went to extras.
After neither team scored in the eighth, the Warhawks (10-0) would bring three runs home in the top of the ninth. A two-run single by Weidemann and a single by Anderson scored the runs.
Hock then got the Jumbos 1-2-3 again in the ninth to earn the victory with three no-hit, no-run relief innings.
Johnson was a hard-luck loser for Tufts, going all nine innings and allowing five hits and just one earned run with no walks and seven K's. Perucci had two hits for Tufts.
Next
Tufts plays the final games of their week in Florida against Elmhurst University and Westminster College (Mo.) on Sunday.
--JUMBOS--
