May 8, 2010

Box Score

NEWARK, Del. - For the second straight game, the George Mason softball team rallied with runs in the seventh and eighth inning as the Patriots finished a three-game sweep at Delaware on Sunday with a 2-1 victory.

Mason closes its season with a 21-24 record, its highest win total since 2005, and a 9-12 mark in Colonial Athletic Association play. Delaware falls to 20-30-1 and 8-13 in conference after the game.

After the Blue Hens took a 1-0 lead in the third inning on a Michelle Grap RBI sacrifice fly, UD held the lead for the majority of the game, and were one out away in the seventh inning from taking the win. Senior Becky Anderson led off the inning with a walk, was sacrificed over to second by Kara Weiner, and moved to third on a wild pitch. With two outs, junior Stephanie Strother drove a pinch-hit single through the middle of the infield and Anderson crossed the plate for the game-tying run.

Delaware loaded the bases in the bottom half of the seventh but could not break the deadlock and the teams headed to extra innings for the second time in the weekend series. Mason put together another two-out rally in the eighth, culminating with sophomore Katie Rynex scoring with the bases loaded as a throwing error by Grap kept the inning alive and gave Mason a 2-1 lead.

The Blue Hens again found a response in the bottom of the eighth, loading the bases with one out. However, a 5-3 double play was turned by the Patriots, ending the game and giving Mason its first CAA sweep of the season and the first since taking all three games from Drexel in 2004.

Anderson, one of two seniors along with Kate Bustin who made their final appearances in the Green and Gold Sunday, pitched a complete game to pick up the win and improve to 11-7. Anne Marie Pagano (7-13) took the loss for the Blue Hens.