DELAND, Fla. -- The Fordham softball team concluded its opening-weekend trip to Florida Sunday with a 2-1 loss to Stetson. With the loss, the Rams fall to 1-4 on the season, while the Hatters improve to 4-1 overall.
The difference in the contest came in the bottom of the first when Stetson scored both its runs off Fordham starter
Rachel Gillen. The Hatters tallied three of their five hits in the frame, as they took advantage of the graduate student's shaky start.
Fordham, who had a chance to score in the top of the first, before stranding freshman
Jessica Hughes at third, placed runners at second and third with two outs in the top of the third but failed to score.
Stetson attempted to add on with two outs in the bottom of the third, but the unconventional 2-6-2-5-1 putout ended the inning.
The Rams crossed the plate their only time in the top of the fourth when freshman
Chelsea Skrepenak scored on junior
Lauren Quense's RBI single up the middle, which also advanced fellow classmate
Stephanie Ferri to second base, as the Fordham starting catcher also singled up the middle. But the Rams were unable to tack on and found themselves still trailing by one.
Neither side did much over the final three innings. Junior
Sydney Canessa gave the Rams hope when she drew a two-out walk in the top of the seventh, but a groundout to shortstop ended the game in the Hatters' favor, 2-1.
Gillen (1-2) allowed two earned runs on five hits, walked one and whiffed four in the complete-game effort. Tori Perkins (1-0) went the distance for Stetson in the circle, where she scattered seven hits, allowed the one earned run, walked one and struck out one.
Hughes went 3-for-4 for the Rams to pace the offense.
Fordham returns to action in Florida next weekend, Feb. 19-21, when it travels to Clearwater to play five games at the Michele Smith Pediatric Cancer Foundation Invitational.
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