MIDDLEBURY, VT (April 16, 2023) -
Sophia DiCocco pitched a five-inning, one-hit shutout in the the opener and
Emilie Doty gave up four hits and a run in game two as the #8 Tufts softball team swept a NESCAC double-header at Middlebury College on Sunday.
With the 9-0 (five innings) and 6-1 wins, Tufts won all four games of its conference weekend road trip. The Jumbos (26-2, 10-0) swept Willams College on Saturday. Mddlebury falls to 13-11 and 4-6 in NESCAC with today's defeats.
First-year
Kaitlyn Perucci led the Jumbos offensively in game one with two triples among her three hits and five runs batted in.
Rachel Moore and
Haley Leimbach both drove home a pair of runs in game two.
Through four innings of game one the only base-runners for Middlebury were Abby Santis reaching on an infield error in the second and a walk to Megan Fox in the fourth. Santis singled up the middle to lead off the fifth and break up the no-no, but DiCocco would get the shutout and her 10th win of the season.
Perucci's first triple in the first scored two as Tufts took an early lead. After Panther starter Kristyn Carroll blanked the Jumbos in the second, Moore's two-run single in the third put Tufts up 4-0.
The Jumbos got themselves into winning by run-rule territory with five runs in the fourth off Middlebury reliever Samantha Hausman. Singles by Leimbach and
Emma Jacobson helped load the bases leading to an rbi single from
Bela Jimenez. Perucci then struck the inning's big blow with a bases-clearing triple to put Tufts up 8-0. She then scored on
Josie Steinberg's ground out.
Along with Perucci, Jimenez (3 for 4, 3 runs, rbi) and Moore (3 for 3, 2 rbis) led the Jumbo bats in game one. Adelman scored twice and Leimbach finished with two hits.
Leimbach's two-run single and a run-scoring base hit by
Lauryn Horita in the top of the first of game two put Tufts up 3-0 right away. That would be more than enough for Doty, who did not allow a hit until Jordyn Johnson's two-out single in the third.
The Jumbos had added two runs in the second on a Middlebury error, a base hit by Jimenez, a hit-by-pitch and then a two-run single by Moore. In the two games today Moore finished 5 for 7 with five rbis.
Johnson would later deliver the Panthers' only run of the day in the fifth with a double down the right-field line which scored Caitlyn Viola who had singled. The Jumbos would add their final run on a Middlebury error in the sixth.
None of Tufts' six runs in game two were earned against Middlebury starter McKenna Lont (7 IP, 10 H). Jimenez (5 for 8, five runs in the double-header), Moore and Leimbach (4 for 6 in the two games) had two hits for the Jumbos in the nighcap, while Jimenez and Adelman scored twice. Johnson's two hits led the Panthers.
The Jumbos next play a non-conference single game at Babson College on Wednesday.
--JUMBOS--
