CLERMONT, FL (March 26, 2023) - Junior
Bela Jimenez had seven hits in the two games and pitchers
Claire Guitmann and
Sophia DiCocco both hurled five-inning, one-hit shutouts as the Tufts University softball team closed its Florida schedule in style with a 13-0 win over Westminster (Mo.) College and a 10-0 victory against Elmhurst University on Sunday.
Head coach
Lauren Ebstein's Jumbos will come home with a 14-1 record after a busy 10 days in Florida. The team hit .386 during the trip, scored 126 runs (8.4 per game) and pitched to a 1.11 earned run average. They won eight times by the eight-run rule.
In Guittman's one-hit shutout of Westminster, the lone hit was a two-out single in the third by Blue Jay Emily Esquivel. Guitmann struck out six and walked two while improving to 2-0.
Tufts scored its 13 runs in the first three innings. Jimenez (4 for 4, 3 runs, 4 rbis) singled and scored on a fielder's choice in the first for a 1-0 Jumbo advantage. Her two-run single in the second inning and a run-scoring base by
Michelle Adelman plated three unearned runs for a 4-0 lead.
The Jumbos then sent 14 batters to the plate in the third and scored nine times.
Nicole Russo started the explosion with a two-run triple to left-center. Jimenez continued her hot day with a two-run double, and then Russo would make it four rbis in the inning with a two-run single bringing the score to 13-0.
Russo finished 2 for 3 with four rbis and a run, while catcher
Keriann Slayton went 2 for 3 with two runs. Haley Miller was the losing pitcher for Westminster (2.1 IP, 9 H, 6 ER).
Against Elmhurst, the last game of the trip, Tufts' bats showed no signs of being tired as they hit three home runs in the second inning.
Emma Jacobson hit a solo shot, then
Michelle Adelman - who had singled in the first and scored on a
Josie Steinberg double - went back-to-back with
Kaitlyn Perucci for a 5-0 Tufts lead.
Meanwhile, DiCoco gave up a two-out single to Elmhurst's Chiara O'Leary in the top of the first. She would not allow another hit over the next four-plus innings, including retiring 14 of the final 15 hitters. She would finish with her fourth win in Florida.
A Tufts run in the third came on a single by
Lindsay Neumann, a double from Russo and a sac fly by Jacobson for a 6-0 lead. Singles by Jimenez, Perucci, Steinberg,
Haley Leimbach and Neumann then helped get three home in the fourth for a 9-0 margin. The Jumbos' final run of the game, and the trip, came on Jimenez's seventh hit of the day (a single) and later an rbi base hit from Steinberg.
With 16 hits in five innings, Tufts had crooked numbers all over the place against Elmhurst - Jimenez (3 for 4, 2 runs), Adelman (2 for 3, 3 runs, 2 rbis), Perucci (2 for 3, 2 runs, rbi), Steinberg (3 for 4, 3 rbis, run), Leimbach (2 for 4), Neumann (2 for 3, run, rbi) and Jacobson (1 for 1, 2 rbis, run).
Ali Mockenhau took the pitching loss for Elmhurst (6-6), giving up 14 hits and nine runs in 3.1 innings.
The Jumbos will begin their NESCAC schedule at home against defending conference champion Amherst College on Saturday at Spicer Field.
--JUMBOS--
