Devils open season with pair of Cusic wins
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Softball
CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- Fredonia State opened its 2009 season with two wins Friday in the Gene Cusic Collegiate Classic.
Freshman right-hander Jennifer Tighe (Hamburg/Frontier) pitched a complete-game four-hitter in her first collegiate start, a 1-0 victory over Wisconsin-Superior in the 9 a.m. game at the Cape Coral Sports Complex.
The Blue Devils (2-0) exploded for five runs in the first inning and hung on for a 6-4 victory over North Park (Ill.) in the 11 a.m. game.
In the early game, Fredonia State scored the game's only run in the last of the fifth. With one out, pinch-hitter Lauren Larson (Lakewood/Panama) worked a eight-pitch walk out of Superior's Kalli Kucharyski. Maria Siderakis (Webster/Webster Thomas) was called on to sacrifice but was credited with a single when she beat out her bunt. Amy Coniglio (Dunkirk) loaded the bases with a single down the line in right, and Rebecca Zimmerman (Jamestown) drove a ball deep to left for a sacrifice fly which scored Larson.
Tighe struck out five and did not walk a batter. She pitched out of jams in the second (runner on third and one out) and the fifth innings. Offensively, Siderakis had a double to go along with her bunt single.
In the second game, a two-run homer by Brittany Connell (Geneva) and a two-run double by Gabrielle Ciccarello (Rochester/Greece Olympia) helped stake the Blue Devils to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first inning. A North Park error made all the runs unearned, and all five runs came after there were two outs.
Freshman right-hander Ashley LaPorta (Buffalo/Mount St. Mary) worked the first four innings to get the win. The Blue Devils were leading 5-3 when LaPorta gave way to freshman left-hander Michelle Lattner (Cheektowaga/West Seneca East) in the last of the fifth. Lattner worked the final three innings to pick up the save off LaPorta's first collegiate win.
Andrea Devon (Elmira/Notre Dame) led the Blue Devils' 10-hit attack with three singles, Siderakis had two more hits, and Coniglio was 2-for-2, including a two-out RBI single resulting in an insurance run in the sixth inning.
The Blue Devils are back in action with two more games Saturday at Cape Coral - at 9 a.m. vs. Ohio Wesleyan and 1 p.m. vs. St. Lawrence. They are scheduled to play 12 games in Florida before returning north.