The Fairleigh Dickinson University softball team defeated Army, 5-3, on Monday morning but fell to Siena, 14-1, in the second game of the day.
Army got on the board in the third inning with a run and tacked another on the scoreboard in the fourth to take a 2-0 lead.
But the Knights put up a five-run fifth inning to take a dominating lead. Brittany Sheppard (Mahwah, NJ/Paramus Catholic) and Justina Augustine (Geneva, NY/Geneva) had back-to-back singles to the outfield. With two outs, Keltos singled to right field to advance the runners and Meghan Doherty (Binghamton, NY/Binghamton) drew an RBI walk to put FDU on the board.
With the bases loaded, Kristen Coughlan (Mount Royal, NJ/Kingsway) smacked a grand slam to put the Knights ahead, 5-2.
Army was able to push one more run across the plate in the bottom of the seventh to make it a 5-3 final.
Augustine finished 2-for-3. Trina Fields (Norridge, IL/Ridgewood) picked up the win on the mound for Fairleigh Dickinson, pitching a complete game. She allowed two earned runs and struck out three.
In the second game of the day, against Siena, the Knights were only able to collect four hits.
“We consistently strung hits together and were able to get people on base,” said Head Coach Dale Martin. “But, in addition to that, we also played well defensively, minimizing the chances that they had and that's something we want to keep improving on.”
“Whatever could have gone wrong did in the second game,” said Martin. “We started off getting seven runs in the top of the first and it was difficult for us to recover from that. We were never really able to get ourselves going. Hopefully in the future this is a good experience for us to bounce back from, and that's what we are looking to do.”
“Offensively, we didn't have lot of output,” said Martin. “We got hits from Ali Keltos (Shelton, CT/Lauralton Hall), Lindsay Glidden (Peachtree City, GA/Starr's Mill), Augustine and Jennifer Boldman (Winter Haven, FL/Winter Haven), but the hits were too few and we had too much ground to make up.”
The Knights are back in action at the Rebel Spring Games on Tuesday, March 18 when they play Hartford at 1:00 p.m. and Manhattan at 5:00 p.m.
