Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

LOS ANGELES – The Fairleigh Dickinson softball team dropped two more contests on Saturday to close out the LMU/Muscle Milk Softball Invitational. The Knights were defeated, 6-4, by UC Riverside in game one and then, 6-1, against Seattle followed in the early evening. With the losses, FDU falls to 3-8 overall, while the Highlanders and Redhawks improve to 25-7 and 10-18, respectively.
 
After being shutout by UC Riverside in game two of yesterday's doubleheader, the Knights kicked things off with a two-spot in the top of the first today. Madison Lerma (Escondido, Calif./Escondido) singled home Madelaine Wilen (Bakerfield, Calif./Ridgeview High School) with Alex Portesi (Chino, Calif./Don Antonio Lugo) moving to third base. A moment later, Lerma stole second and Portesi was able to make it home to score run number two.
 
With Cheryl Lopez (Staten Island, N.Y./Tottenville) on the bump, the Highlanders got two on immediately on consecutive errors by Courtney Slye (Mission Viejo, Calif./Capistrano Valley High School) and Angelique Nieves (Union City, N.J./High Tech High School). Both runners would come around to score on RBI singles by Haley Harris and Rebecca Faulkner with Chelsey Holley adding two more on a two-run double down the left field line. All four runs were unearned.
 
UC Riverside picked up two more runs the next inning with a Erika Campbell RBI double and a Kris DeAnda RBI single after Faulkner had reached on another Nieves error.
 
Nieves made up for the errors with the Knights' first triple of the season, and third of her career, to score Wilen and cut the deficit to 6-3.
 
Lopez settled down after the first two innings, allowing just two more hits and three total baserunners.
 
Nieves was able to plate another run with a RBI single in the fifth, scoring Wilen, but it was the end of the scoring for both teams.
 
Lopez falls to 0-2 on the season despite giving up just one earned run, while Tayler Misfeldt moves to 4-1 overall. Chelsea Ponce recorded her first save with two-thirds of an inning to close it out.
 
Game two featured both school's top pitchers – Megan Reiner (Los Angeles, Calif./John Marshall) for FDU and Mandie Sugita for Seattle.
 
The Knights' bats were silenced by Sugita for much of the contest with just four hits over the first six innings. FDU got two on in the second but couldn't capitalize.
 
The Redhawks got on the board when Jenny Hurst doubled in Bubba Morrow and Breanna Timmons in the first.
 
It wasn't until the fifth when Reiner allowed more runners to cross home plate, first on a solo shot from Maddy Kristjanson and then a Molly Campbell three-run bomb an inning later.
 
Reiner was saddled with the loss, her fourth of the season, to move to 3-4 on the season. Today was the first game in which the senior hurler didn't allow a free pass but it was her second-most earned runs allowed (six) and third-most hits allowed (eight). Reiner has now gone the distance in all six starts this season.
 
Sugita moves to 7-5 while allowing six hits and one run, no walks, and two strikeouts in seven frames.
 
The Knights return to New Jersey and have four days off before a doubleheader at Rider on Wednesday, March 25. First pitch in Lawrenceville is set for 3 p.m.