LaPorta's no-hitter completes sweep
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Softball
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- A no-hitter by freshman Ashley LaPorta (Buffalo/Mount St. Mary) followed a complete-game eight-inning victory by freshman Jennifer Tighe (Hamburg/Frontier) as Fredonia State won twice Tuesday at the Gene Cusic Collegiate Classic.
LaPorta's no-hitter was a five-inning outing, the result of the Blue Devils (5-2-1) dropping U. Mass-Dartmouth, 8-0, in a game ended by the mercy rule in the 7 p.m. game at the Lee County Sports Complex. In winning her second game this spring against one loss, LaPorta struck out three and walked two. Her teammates staked her to two runs in the first, one more in the fourth, and five in the fifth to put the game away.
Rebecca Zimmerman (Jamestown) and Rachel Burrows (Olean) had two singles each, and Katie Turvey (Lockport/Depew) drove in the final two runs of the game with a walk-off single. Lauren Larson (Lakewood/Panama) added a sacrifice fly and a single.
Tighe scattered 10 hits but pitched herself out of several jams for a 3-2 victory over Richard Stockton in the 5 p.m. game. She fell behind 2-0 in the second inning but held the Ospreys scoreless the rest of the way. Meanwhile, the Blue Devils cut their deficit to 2-1 with a lead-off double by Larson, a sacrifice bunt by Tighe, and a sacrifice fly by Courtney Wight (Bolivar/Bolivar-Richburg) in the fifth inning. Zimmerman walked to lead off the sixth. Brittany Lis (Lancaster) dropped a sacrifice bunt and Zimmerman never stopped running. She scored the tying run on an overthrow past third.
With the score tied after seven innings, the international tiebreaker rule went into affect in the eighth. Wight was placed on second, took third on a sacrifice by Burrows, and scored with two outs when Lis bounced a ball up the middle which the Stockton shortstop was unable to field. Stockton also started its eighth inning with a runner at second. Tighe's first pitch of the inning went to the backstop to put the runner at third with no outs. The batter lofted a pop behind second which Lis, playing second base, caught behind the base. She got off a quick throw to the plate to double-up the runner trying to score from third. The Ospreys kept the inning going with back-to-back singles to put runners on first and third. Tighe induced the next batter to ground back to the mound for the final out.
The Blue Devils play twice more Wednesday -- at 9 a.m. vs. Delaware Valley, and 1 p.m. vs. Franklin & Marshall. Both games are at the Lee County Sports Complex.