Las Vegas, Nev. – The Fordham softball suffered a pair of defeats to open up the Rebel Classic at UNLV on Friday. The Rams fell in five, 11-3, to Seattle, and, 16-12, to Hawaii in the nightcap. With the day's results, Fordham falls to 3-4 overall on the young season.
Both the Redhawks and Rainbows jumped out to early 6-0 leads in their respective first innings. In the opening game, Seattle was able to limit Fordham's offense to three runs the rest of the way, all coming in the fourth frame on a
Madie Aughinbaugh solo home run, a
Maria Trivelpiece RBI double, and a
Rachel Hubertus RBI single. The Redhawks enacted the run rule in the fifth with a walk-off RBI double.
Fordham turned game two in a back-and-forth thriller, chipping away at an early deficit with multiple two-out rallies and taking two late leads. An RBI fielder's choice got one run back in the bottom half of the first and
Jordy Storm's two-out, two-run double in the second got them within three.
Gianna Ranieri's two-out RBI double in the third was in response to Hawaii scoring in the top of the third. The Rainbows struck again with a solo home run in the fourth, one of their eight round-trippers in the game, but the Rams rallied for five runs in the home half to take their first lead of the day. Fordham loaded the bases with one out and scored one on a
Molly Roark groundout, before Trivelpiece drove in two with a single and Hubertus smashed her second home run of the season to center to take a 9-8 lead.
Hawaii tied things up immediately to start the fifth with a solo home run but the Rams retook the lead shortly thereafter on a Roark two-run bomb to right center, scoring
Chelsea Skrepenak, who had singled and stolen second. The Rainbows retook the lead for good in the sixth although Fordham rallied later in the frame. With two outs and runners on the corners, Storm struck a single up the middle to get within one but the rally ended with a fielder's choice.
The offense enjoyed a solid day at the plate, posting a collective .407/.453/.627 slash line. Hubertus, Ranieri, and Skrepenak led the way with four hits apiece, the latter scoring a team-high four times. Aughinbaugh, Storm, and Trivelpiece each tallied three hits, and four different Rams drove in three teammates.
Fordham wraps up the Rebel Classic tomorrow with games against Utah Valley (2 p.m.) and BYU (4:30 p.m.).
