Fairfax, Va. – Fordham softball earned its third Atlantic 10 three-game sweep of the campaign on Sunday by holding off a late George Mason rally and winning, 5-4, in the ninth inning. With the victory, the Rams improve to 23-18 overall and 11-6 in the league, while the Patriots fall to 17-25 and 6-12, respectively.
Fordham scored one run in the first and one in the fifth sandwiched around a two-run
Rachel Hubertus home run to lead, 4-2, entering the sixth. George Mason scored once each in the sixth and seventh innings to tie the game up and nearly walked off in the eighth but were thwarted by
Mary Grace O'Neill, off the bench in place of
Brianna Pinto, who threw out pinch runner Madi Williams at home with two outs.
Bailey Enoch provided the go-ahead hit with a two-out RBI single to center to score
Michaela Carter, who had led off with a single of her own.
Makenzie McGrath, in her third inning of work, picked up her eighth win of the year with a 1-2-3 ninth.
The Rams scored their opening run thanks to back-to-back errors in the field, Pinto reaching and then stealing her third base of the weekend and 25
th base of the year, fifth-most in a single campaign. The Patriots responded with a pair of two-out hits against
Devon Miller in the bottom half of the frame. Hubertus powered her 15
th home run of the year, fourth-most in a single season, in the third inning, scoring Carter. That one hit also moved her into the all-time RBI top-10, now in a tie for ninth with Paige Ortiz ('15). The visitors' fourth run was again unearned, coming on a Miller bases-loaded walk. Mason cut the deficit in half in the sixth via a Haley Taormina solo home run and then tied things up with another two-out run, this time a Taylor Dadig RBI single to score Amber Verstynen. The Rams put their first two runners on in the eighth but failed to capitalized, while O'Neill helped Enoch get out of a two-on jam.
Carter led the way with the squad's lone multi-hit effort, going 3-for-5 with three runs scored, tied for her career-high, while Miller and
Julia Martine each walked twice.
Allie Clark and
Sarah Taffet each had the other hits. Enoch tossed the bulk of the contest, 4.2 innings, allowing two runs while striking out a pair.
Fordham returns to the Bronx this Wednesday night to host nearby rival St. John's under the lights at 7 p.m. on ESPN+.
