Box Score
MEDFORD - Senior Jo Clair broke her own Tufts single-season home runs record with her 17th in the bottom of the fifth inning to give the Jumbos a 4-3 victory against MIT at Spicer Field on Tuesday afternoon.
Clair went 2 for 3 with the home run, a double, two rbis and two runs scored to lead Tufts, which improved to 33-3. With her opposite-field bomb, which sailed over the scoreboard in right, Clair surpassed the 16 home runs she hit as a freshman in 2011.
A scrappy MIT team, which dropped to 10-21 with the loss, didn't let the Jumbos win easily. The Engineers led 2-0 and then tied the game at 3-3 before Clair's home run.
In the third, a one-out double by junior pitcher Ellie Fodor started an Engineer rally. With two outs, first-year SS Natalie Shifflet singled Fodor to third. Both scored on a double by first-year 3B Ali Trueworthy and the visitors led 2-0.
Tufts came right back to take a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the third. Junior 3B Bri Keenan led off with a single, and then after two were out senior LF Sara Hedtler walked. Clair doubled home the first run and then first-year 1B Cassie Ruscz followed with a two-run double down the right-field line.
The Engineers scored after two were out again in the fifth to tie the game at 3-3. Shifflet reached on a fielder's choice and eventually scored on a Tufts error. MIT had four singles in the inning, but left the bases loaded as Tufts starter Lauren Giglio got a strike out to end the threat.
After Clair's home run put Tufts ahead, MIT's Shifflet was hit by a pitch to lead off the seventh. However, after she was sacrificed to second, she got caught trying to advance to third on a ground ball to shorstop. Tufts junior 2B Gracie Marshall chased her down in a rundown for a key Tufts out.
Giglio improved to 14-1 with the pitching victory. She allowed seven hits and three runs with seven strike outs and a walk. She hit three batters. Keenan went 2 for 2 and scored a run for Tufts.
Fodor took the loss for MIT, giving up seven hits and four runs with three K's and a walk. Trueworthy finished 2 for 3 for the Engineers, while Shifflet scored twice.
#
