Box Score
CLERMONT, FL – The 2012 Tufts softball team opened its season with a pair of wins at the National Training Center in Florida on Saturday. The Jumbos defeated #25 St. Thomas, 2-1, behind a strong debut from first-year pitcher Allyson Fournier (South Windsor, CT). Senior SS Mira Lieman-Sifry (Hastings-on-Hudson) then went 4 for 4 with three rbi in a 6-2 victory over Hope.
Fournier went a full seven innings allowing two hits and one run with nine strikeouts to defeat the Tommies. She did not allow a hit until two were out in the fifth inning. However, she was locked in a pitching battle with St. Thomas' Kendra Bowe.
St. Thomas had the first lead after Kristin Bigelbach was hit by a pitch to open the fifth. She was sacrificed to second and scored on the first Tommie hit, a double to left by Jenna Hoffman. The Jumbo offense had an answer though. After a St. Thomas error, a sacrifice bunt and a fly ball, senior CF Lizzy Iuppa (Paramus, NJ) brought home the first run of the season for Tufts with a single.
Fournier worked out of a second and third with two outs situation in the top of the sixth, and then a bases-loaded with one out jam in the seventh. Tufts also had runners on second and third in the sixth and didn't score. However, they were able to win the game with a seventh-inning rally. Senior DH Katherine Darveau (Reading, MA) led off with a single and eventually scored on a walk-off rbi single by first-year RF Bri Keenan (Portsmouth, NH).
Iuppa finished 2 for 4 at the top of the Jumbo line-up, the only player in the game with multiple hits. Bowe went six innings for St. Thomas, allowing four hits and two runs before she was relieved by Treya Connell, who surrendered the winning run.
Tufts was down 2-0 against Hope after allowing a pair of unearned runs in the second. Kristin Higgs had an rbi single in the frame for the Flying Dutch. Jumbo junior starter Rebecca DiBiase (Wellesley, MA) would not allow another run and the Tufts offense would finish with 17 hits.
Sophomore catcher Jo Clair (Glastonbury, CT) was 3 for 4 in the game with two rbi and a run. She had an rbi single in the third to pull Tufts within 2-1. She doubled with one out in the fifth and scored on a two-run double by Lieman-Sifry. First-year DH Michelle Cooprider (Hopkinton, MA) also had a run-scoring single in the fifth as Tufts took a 4-2 lead. The Jumbos added two more in the sixth on rbi singles from Clair and Lieman-Sifry.
DiBiase went the distance for Tufts, giving up six hits and no earned runs with four K's. Iuppa had another multi-hit game at the top of the Tufts order going 2 for 4 with a run. Cooprider and classmate Kris Parr (Austin, TX) both had a pair of hits.
The Jumbos will face Kean and Wisconsin-Eau Clair in Sunday games.
St. Thomas boxscore
Hope boxscore
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