Women’s Softball Team Home Openers End in a Draw

A battle between last year’s regular-season and postseason East Coast Conference (ECC) champions ended in a draw on Wednesday, March 29.

Playing its first home games of the season as well as the league opener, the NYIT softball team beat the Molloy College Lions 6-1 in the opener, then fell 2-1 in the nightcap.

In Game 1, NYIT starter Ashley Russo surrendered a game-opening homer to Olivia Banulski, then proceeded to keep the defending-postseason-champion Lions off the scoreboard the rest of the way en route to a complete game.

Kaitlyn Lanksbury set the tone for NYIT with a solo homerun to lead off the bottom of the first and finished the opener 4-for-4 with three runs scored. Tiffany McCracken added a two-run homer the following inning.

Russo allowed one run on six hits while striking out two in seven innings.

“I felt like we came out really strong in the first game,” Russo said. “You could tell we had the energy. Everyone was excited and ready. It was a big win because Molloy was defending ECC champs.”

In Game 2, Laura McLaughlin limited Molloy to two runs on eight hits and three walks in a hard-luck complete-game loss.

Trailing by a run, the Bears (7-7, 1-1) loaded the bases with two outs in the sixth. Christine Rizzacasa then appeared poised to bloop a single inside the left-field foul line. However, Lions shortstop Kaitlyn Snyder raced back and made a diving catch in the shallow outfield to prevent the tying and potentially go-ahead runs from scoring.

“The kid came out of nowhere," said Stephen Christianson, head coach of the Bears. “That was the game-winning play. She covered a lot of ground and made full extension.”