Wellesley Splits With Clark (3-30-08)

In the opening game of a NEWMAC doubleheader, the Wellesley Blue were defeated by Clark University 5-3. In the bottom of the first inning, Clark scored first on a homerun over the left field fence. Timely and aggressive batting would give the Cougars a 3-0 advantage after one inning. In the bottom of the second inning, Wellesley cut the lead to 3-2 after Senior, Meghan Sullivan, buried a triple in right field and Sophomore, Alex Warren, blasted a homerun that would score Sullivan and Warren. Clark scored an additional run in the top of the third inning to inch the score up to 4-2. Sophomore, Ilana Orloff, and Junior, Amanda Tai, would respond for Wellesley in the bottom of the third inning after an Orloff single and a Tai sacrifice that advanced Orloff to second base. Senior, Alex Coari, singled to right field that enabled Orloff to come home. At the bottom of the third inning, Wellesley trailed 4-3. In the fourth inning, the Cougars added another run to set the score at five runs to Wellesley's three runs. This proved to be all of the runs scored in Game 1 for Clark and Wellesley. In the loss, Wellesley's Coari, Senior, Kara Wong, Sullivan, Warren, Orloff, and First-Year, Alison Davis recorded hits. Starting Senior pitcher, Kristie Gola, gave up seven hits and four runs in the loss. In five innings of relief pitching, Junior, Beej Grundlock, allowed three hits and one run.

In Game 2, Wellesley rebounded well and defeated Clark 8-0. The Blue opened the game by scoring five runs in the bottom of the first inning. Tai tripled to right and scored off of Coari's single to left field. The bases were loaded after Wong and First-Year, Alison Davis, stroked singles. Coari would score and Wong would move to third base after Warren flied out to right field. Aggressive base-running and a couple of Clark errors helped Wellesley to score additional runs in the inning. Sullivan hit a tough bouncer to short that enabled Wong to score. Off of a Clark error, Sullivan moved to third base and would score after Senior, Jenna Harvey, hit a shot to deep center field.

Throughout the remainder of the game, Clark threatened to score on numerous occasions but Wellesley's resilient pitching and defensive efforts proved to be too much for the Cougars to overcome. Harvey K'ed eleven Clark batters and allowed three hits. Offensively, she received additional support throughout the game from Warren (solo homerun in the bottom of the third inning), Wong (lead-off homerun in the bottom of the fifth inning), and Sophomore, Megan Wood (solo homerun in the bottom of the sixth inning). The game ended early for the Blue after Wood's solo blast.

For Game 2, Wong scored and hit twice; Tai, Coari, Davis, Warren, Sullivan, and Wood all hit once.