Box Score
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Jo Clair knocked in the go-ahead run for Tufts in the 11th
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CLERMONT, FL - In a game between two of New England's top teams played in Florida, the Tufts softball team scored four times in the top of the 11th inning to earn a 5-1 victory against Babson on Thursday.
Tufts is #2 and Babson is also receiving votes in the latest NFCA national poll. The game fit the bill as it was a 1-1 tie through 10 innings, with Jumbo hurlers Lauren Giglio and Allyson Fournier battling Babson's Meghan Hayes.
In the Tufts 11th, with Michelle Cooprider on second by way of the tie-breaker rule, senior LF Sara Hedtler followed with a single. Senior Jo Clair then singled home Cooprider for a 2-1 Tufts lead. The Jumbos scored their next three runs on Babson miscues, an error and a wild pitch.
In the bottom of the 11th, Fournier struck out the side to give Tufts the win.
Giglio was excellent again in her start for Tufts. She went seven innings allowing just two hits and an unearned run while striking out eight with two walks. The lone Babson run came in the second on a Jumbo error and a single by Hayes.
The Babson pitcher was outstanding as well, going all 11 innnings giving up six hits and five runs, but none earned. She struck out six and walked one. Likewise, her only run before extra innings was unearned. Senior 1B Kayla Holland delivered it for the Jumbos with a two-out single in the second.
Fournier entered in the eighth for Tufts and shut down Babson's chances with the tie-breaker rule in effect. She allowed no hits and no walks with 10 strikeouts in her four innings.
Tufts got their tie-breaker runner to third in the eighth through 10th innings off Hayes, but could not break through.
Clair (2 for 4) and Holland (2 for 5) from Tufts were the only players with multiple hits in the game. Jumbo junior Gracie Marshall scored twice.
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