VILLANOVA, Pa.
? The Princeton softball team extended its winning streak to six games with a
doubleheader sweep of Villanova Thursday afternoon, holding on in both games
for 6-4 and 4-3 wins.
Game 1: Princeton 6,
Villanova 4
Philadelphia-area native Kathryn Welch and Collette Abbott
each had two hits in the opener as Princeton
ended a 12-game non-league skid with a 6-4 win over Villanova.
The Tigers, who entered the week ranked 16th in
Division I in home runs per game, didn't leave the yard for the first time in
five contests, instead taking advantage of three Wildcat errors and getting
timely hitting to scratch out its runs.
Princeton took a 2-0 lead over
the first two innings. Welch picked up a Megan Weidrick walk in the first and two
walks and a single helped push across another run in the following frame.
But Villanova took its only lead in the bottom half of the
second on the help of three singles and a walk against Princeton
starter Kristen Schaus, who lasted three innings.
The Tigers clawed back with a run in the fourth and fifth
innings and two more in the sixth. Brianna Moreno reached on a two-out error in
the fourth and was able to use her speed to motor all the way around the bases
for the tying run. A Kelsey Quist leadoff triple in the fifth helped pull
Princeton ahead, and four straight hits in the sixth, capped by RBI-singles
from Abbott and Jamie Lettire widened the Princeton
lead to 6-3.
Michelle Tolfa (6-3) picked up the win in relief of Kristen
Schaus, who struck out two and allowed five hits in her three innings.
Tolfa allowed five hits and the final run Villanova cobbled
together in the sixth.
Game 2: Princeton 4,
Villanova 3 (8 inn.)
Kristin Arguedas turned in a 3 for 4 performance at the
plate and blasted a two-run home run, giving the Tigers an early lead as Princeton held on for a 4-3, eight-inning win.
The home run is Princeton's
38th of the season, tying a record set in 2005. Arguedas'
second-inning blast was the second of her rookie campaign and gave the Tigers a
2-0 lead in support of Tolfa, who allowed six hits and two runs in six innings
of work.
Both of Villanova's runs off Tolfa came in the sixth inning
as a walk and back-to-back doubles, all with two outs, squared the game.
Schaus (7-13) came in to relieve for Princeton and picked up
the win after Princeton scored two runs in the
top of the eighth, all without getting a hit. Villanova pitcher Megan Hord (1-3)
hit two batters and walked two more. One of the runs came home when Abbott was
hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and the second, which turned out to be the
winning run, scored on an error.
The pair of runs came in handy after the Wildcats' Meghan
Morese hit a leadoff home run in the bottom of the eighth to cut the Princeton lead to 4-3. Villanova picked up a two-out
triple, but Schaus stranded the runner with her third strikeout in two relief
innings.
Schaus' five strikeouts between the two games moves her to
794 for her career, 25 short of former teammate Erin Snyder '06 (819) for the Princeton record.
The Tigers will return to Ivy play with another Philadelphia school,
Penn, with a four-game set at Class of 1895 Field Saturday and Sunday. Both
days start at 12:30 p.m.
