WESTFIELD, Mass. - April 11, 2022 - After dropping game one 11-5, the Dean College softball team rebounded to take game two 10-3 and earn a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) split with Elms.
Dean (2-11, 1-5 GNAC) will return home on Tuesday to host non-conference foe Fitchburg State at 3 p.m. Elms (7-11, 2-6 GNAC) travels to Albertus Magnus tomorrow for a twin bill at 3 p.m.
GAME ONE - Elms 11, Dean 5
The Blazers scored six times on two hits and an error in the first inning.
Dean got a run back in the second on an RBI single from senior
Bridget McDonough (North Reading, Mass.).
The Bulldogs plated three more runs in the third on a couple of RBI singles from senior
Shelby Smith (Southwick, Mass.) and junior
Sari Albury (Nassau, Bahamas).
Dean kept chipping away with another run in the fourth to pull within 6-5.
Elms answered with a run in the bottom of the fourth and tacked on four more in the sixth to earn the 11-5 victory.
First-year
Shirley Chan (Kowloon, Hong Kong) led the Dean hitters with a 2-for-4 effort at the plate to go with two runs scored.
GAME TWO - Dean 10, Elms 3
Dean junior
Gianna Bencivengo (White Plains, N.Y.) gave the Bulldogs an early lead with an RBI single in the first. The team scored three more runs, including two RBIs from
Avellaka Arviso (Hemet, Calif.).
Albury tripled in Chan in the second to give Dean a 5-0 lead.
In the fifth, Dean senior
Miranda Seacord (Cambridge, N.Y.) knocked in a run with a triple.
Elms got on the board in the bottom half of the fifth to make the score 6-1 in favor of Dean.
The Bulldogs finished strong by adding four runs to their lead in the seventh to go on top 10-1. Chan had a sac fly, Bencivengo doubled in Seacord and Albury blasted a two-run homer.
The Blazers scored twice in their final at-bat but that would be as close as they would get with the Bulldogs earning their first GNAC win.
Albury finished 4-for-5 with three RBIs and a double short of the cycle. Bencivengo and Seacord each had three hits.
Arviso got the win from the pitcher's circle with a complete game. She gave up three runs on nine hits with a couple of strikeouts.