By Joseph Caruso
Staff Writer
The College’s softball team was eliminated from the New Jersey Athletic Conference Tournament after losing back-to-back games to Ramapo and Kean, respectively.
Riding high off a season-high seven-game win streak, including an all-time win against Rowan, the Lions earned themselves the second seed in the NJAC Tournament, where they awaited Ramapo on Saturday, May 3.
Sophomore pitcher and First Team All-NJAC recipient Maya Knasiak took the mound for the College and held things together, throwing six innings of one-run ball before exiting the game. The game was scoreless before the NJAC Player of the Year, fifth-year Julia Kinnally, homered to put the Lions ahead 1-0.
That score held until the seventh, where Ramapo chased Knasiak with a solo shot to tie the game. Junior Elizabeth Gosse entered the game in relief and surrendered three runs in two innings of work. Down 4-1, the College tried to rally in the eighth, and got another RBI from Kinnally to pull within two, but they couldn’t break through and were defeated by Ramapo, 4-2.
The Lions would get another chance later in the day against fifth-seeded Kean, with no more room for error. Similarly to the first game, Knasiak held strong in the early innings, and Kinnally collected two RBIs to vault the Lions ahead 2-0 in the top of the third.
Still leading by two runs heading into the bottom of the fifth, the Lions collapsed, allowing ten runs in one inning. Knasiak was pulled after giving up three runs, as senior Julia Roessler entered the game. Roessler gave up two runs of her own in a third of an inning before Gosse took her place, who ended up surrendering the final five runs en route to a Kean 10-2 run-rule victory.
Back-to-back losses on Saturday marked the end of the Lions' NJAC Championship hopes, a disappointing end to an otherwise spectacular year that saw the College go 23-15 on the season, with players earning a plethora of individual honors as well. They will now wait and see if they earn an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.
