MEDFORD, MA (May 18, 2024) – Needing to win twice today to keep their season alive, the Tufts University softball team did just that with 15-1 (five innings) and 3-2 wins over the University of Rochester in the NCAA Regional Finals at Spicer Field. With the victories Tufts is the NCAA Regional Champion.
Head coach
Lauren Ebstein's Jumbos (36-8) advance to play in the NCAA Super Regionals against Salisbury University, which also hosted and won an NCAA Regional today. The Super Regional will be played next Thursday and Friday (May 23-24) with the site not yet announced.
Rochester (32-9) had won Game 3 of the NCAA Regional 5-2 against Tufts on Friday to gain an advantage in the tournament. The Yellowjackets needed to defeat Tufts just once today, but the Jumbos were able to pull off a pair of wins to advance.
NCAA Regional Game 6 – Tufts 15, Rochester 1 (5 inn.)
Tufts had a season-high 19 hits and scored four runs in the first inning, three in the fourth and eight in the fifth to earn the five-inning run-rule victory. Equally dominant was senior pitcher
Sophia DiCocco, who threw a five-inning one-hitter.
Playing as the visiting team, the Jumbos got out to a 4-0 lead in the first frame. They sent nine batters to the plate and had five hits.
Josie Steinberg, who would earn Most Outstanding Player honors for the tournament, led off with a single and eventually scored the first run on a wild pitch.
Michelle Adelman singled home a run, then
Keila McCabe hit a two-run single.
DiCocco threw a 1-2-3 first, but the Yellowjackets got to her for a run in the second. Bailey Nicholoff was hit by a pitch to start the inning, moved to third on a pair of ground balls and scored on a single to center by Hunter Gilbreath. That would be Rochester's only hit and only run of the game.
A double by
Rachel Moore, an rbi single from
Haley Leimbach, a hit-by-pitch to
Lauryn Horita and a two-run single by
Kaitlyn Perucci led to a 7-1 Jumbo margin in the fourth.
Tufts broke it wide open in the fifth when 14 Jumbos batted and combined for nine hits.
Bela Jimenez hit a two-run single, Perucci followed with a two-run triple and Adelman, Moore and
Keriann Slayton all added run-scoring singles as Tufts went up 15-1.
McCabe finished 3 for 4 with two runs and two rbis, while Moore also had three hits with a run and an rbi. Perucci finished 2 for 4 with four rbis and two runs, and both Jimenez and Adelman were 2 for 4 with two runs and two rbis. Slayton (2 for 4, run, rbi), Steinberg (2 for 5, two runs) and Horita (1 for 2, two runs) also had crooked numbers.
Rochester sophomore pitcher Molly Broccolo wasn't able to get out of the first inning. She took the loss after allowing four hits and four runs in a third of an inning.
NCAA Regional Game 7 – Tufts 3, Rochester 2
The teams battled closely to decide the Regional champion in a completely different Game 7. A two-run single by Slayton with two outs in the bottom of the fourth would make the difference.
After a scoreless first inning, Rochester would leave the bases loaded in the top of the second. The visitors would score first though, as Jenna Gorecki singled, went to a third on a base hit by Nicholoff and scored on a sac fly from Jensen Sminchak in the top of the third.
Horita tied the game with her 10th home run in the bottom of the third. Sminchak made a great effort to catch the ball at the center-field fence, but it would deflect off her glove and over the wall.
Rochester responded immediately though, scoring in the fourth to lead 2-1. Base hits by Gilbreath, Savannah Nowak and Riley Laygo (rbi) scored the run. However, DiCocco, Moore and Leimbach would turn a 1-5-3 double play to prevent the Yellowjackets' from anything more.
In the bottom of the fourth Perucci and McCabe singled and advanced a base each on a passed ball. Rochester got the second out on a run down between third and home, but Slayton delivered a single up the middle scoring two and launching the Jumbos to a 3-2 advantage.
After entering in the fourth, DiCocco went four innings allowing four hits and a run. She retired the final 10 hitters she faced and picked up her second victory of the day, improving to 16-4 overall.
Rochester starter Maddie White kept it a 3-2 game by stranding two Jumbos in the fifth and pitching a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth. She would be a hard-luck losing pitcher, giving up five hits and three runs in six innings.
Perucci's two hits led the Jumbos. The Yellowjackets out-hit Tufts 8-5, led by Nowak's 3 for 3 game.
Along with Steinberg winning Most Outstanding Player, Tufts' All-Tournament honorees were DiCocco, Horita and Perucci.
--JUMBOS--
