The Binghamton University softball team opened its season this weekend, winning twice and placing second in the four-team Stetson Tournament.
On Friday, the Bearcats fell 5-4 to Elon University in a dramatic nine-inning tilt. Rallying from a 3-0 deficit in the top of the sixth, Binghamton used a solo shot from junior Meghan Tucker and a three-run jolt from senior Deannie Plemon to take a 4-3 lead. With the same 4-3 lead intact and with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, sophomore Rhoda Marsteller surrendered a game-tying single to Elon’s Emerald Graham. Graham delivered in the clutch for Elon two innings later, hitting the game-winning sacrifice fly to left.
A day later, the Bearcats avenged their loss by downing Elon 2-0 behind the arm of junior Kristen Emerling. Emerling went the distance while allowing seven hits, walking two and fanning four. It was the third complete-game shutout of her career at Binghamton.
The Bearcats jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second inning when freshman Demi Laney hit the first homer of her collegiate career. Three innings later, Binghamton squandered an opportunity to take a commanding lead. Three straight singles by freshman Jessica Bump and sophomores Shannon Kane and Jessica Phillips loaded the bases with no outs, but a double play and a strikeout later left the Bearcats up 1-0.
In the bottom of the sixth, Elon loaded the bases with one out. When asked if she considered pulling Emerling during Elon’s rally, head coach Michelle Burrell implied her decision was a no-brainer.
“Kristen just threw a really good game,” Burrell said. “She showed a lot of composure throughout the game and had gotten herself out of some pretty tough situations, so … we just wanted to stay with her.”
The coach’s decision proved to be the right one, as Emerling squashed the threat by fanning pinch-hitter Erin O’Shea and popping up Danielle Lafferty.
Emerling received some insurance in the top of the seventh, when Phillips singled in Kane with one out to extend the Bearcats’ lead to 2-0, and Emerling subsequently sat the Phoenix down in order to conclude the game.
The trio of Bump, Kane and Phillips recorded eight hits in 10 at-bats.
“The first game out, we were just seeing some jitters at the plate, and I think they got a lot more comfortable the second day out,” Burrell said.
Less than one hour later, the Bearcats returned to the field to challenge Tennessee State University, which had lost its first two games of the tournament. The Tigers got on the board early, as Laney surrendered a solo home run to TSU’s Caitlin Eaton with one out in the first, but Binghamton junior Colleen Whitaker responded in the bottom of the second with a round-tripper of her own to knot up the score at one.
Binghamton pushed its lead to 3-1 on a two-run homer by Phillips in the bottom of the third, and a Plemon groundout in the fifth scored Phillips to give the Bearcats a 4-1 lead. Phillips finished the game with three hits in three at-bats. TSU responded with an unearned run off Marsteller in the sixth but was incapable of trimming its deficit any further. Marsteller closed out the game in the seventh, and the Bearcats defeated the Tigers 4-2.
Pitchers Laney and Marsteller combined to allow just five hits and one earned run while they walked two and struck out seven. Laney recorded the first win of her career.
On Sunday, the Bearcats dropped the final game of the tournament to host Stetson University. Stetson struggled against Binghamton’s pitching duo of Emerling and Marsteller for every inning of the game except the third, when four Hatters crossed the plate. With runners at first and third and two outs, Stetson’s Meredith Owen and Chelsea Whalley hit back-to-back singles to drive in two runs and give the Hatters a 2-0 lead. Bump committed a throwing error one batter later, and Owen and Whalley both touched home.
Phillips responded with a solo home run to cut the deficit to 4-1 in the fourth, and the Bearcats scored one more run in the sixth.
The Bearcats only recorded three hits while committing two errors in the loss.
“We broke down a little bit defensively, and I think as a team we need to produce more runs,” Burrell said. “We didn’t produce runs early, and that ended up hurting us. We definitely threatened later on in the game, but we didn’t really come out from the get-go that game to score runs early.”
Overall, Burrell was happy with the team’s effort and saw promise in her younger players.
“I thought we had a really good combined team effort. We had a lot of different people contributing,” she said. “A lot of our freshmen got to see time on the field and did a really good job. We put them in a lot of tough situations, and I think that’s just going to help going into next weekend and our future tournaments and conference play later on.”
The Bearcats are set to travel to Virginia for a five-game tournament at George Mason this weekend where their first game is scheduled to be against Cornell at 6:15 p.m. on Friday.