Game One Box Score
Game Two Box Score

LANCASTER, Pa. – Alyssa Cantalini (Kitchener, Ontario/St. David Catholic Secondary) finished with two triples and one home run in the Susquehanna softball team's doubleheader sweep of Elizabethtown on Wednesday afternoon.

SU (24-6) won game one by a final score of 6-3 before winning the nightcap 4-3.

In the game one victory, Cantalini picked up two hits – both triples, drove in two runs and scored two of her own. Starting pitcher Ashley Cole (Carle Place, N.Y./Carle Place) went the distance and scattered nine hits over seven innings of work. She struck out four batters and walked only two.

The Crusaders fell into a 2-0, first-inning deficit after the Blue Jays scored two run on an Elly McCarthy RBI single to right field.

SU got one of those runs back in the top of the second courtesy of a Bridget Rafter (Highlands, N.J./Henry Hudson Regional) RBI double to left field. Unfortunately Elizabethtown countered with a run of its own in the bottom half of that inning to maintain a two-run lead (3-1).

Susquehanna tied the game the very next inning. The first run scored when Cantalini drove Lauren Gilbert (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) home with a triple to right center for a 3-2 ballgame and an Amanda Neveroski (Toms River, N.J./Toms River North) RBI groundout made it a 3-3 game.

Larissa Luu (Montandon, Pa./Milton) put SU up 4-3 on her seventh-inning solo shot to left field. That stood as the game-winning hit as the Crusaders proceeded to add two insurance after Luu's homer. Cantalini came through with another RBI triple and a Kathryn Gilbert (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) triple drove in the third run of the inning to make it a 6-3 Susquehanna lead.

Cole worked out of a two-on, two-out situation in the seventh to preserve the Susquehanna win.

Seven different players accounted for SU's seven hits in game two and Cantalini drove in two more runs while scoring another.

Starting pitcher Sarah Hoffman (Laceyville, Pa./Wyalusing Valley) pitched the first five innings and gave up only one run (unearned) on four hits. Morgan Lewis (Newtown, Pa./Council Rock North) tossed the final two innings and picked up a save in the process.

Susquehanna took a 2-0 lead in game two thanks to a Cantalini two-run homer to center field that scored Kathryn Gilbert who had reached base on a one-out single.

It remained a 2-0 Susquehanna lead until the fifth inning when the Blue Jays scraped together a run on a fielder's choice to make it a one-run game (2-1).

It did not stay a one-run game for long as the Crusaders added two runs in the top of the sixth, the first of which scored on a Sam LaCoe (Clarks Summit, Pa./Abington Heights) double to left center. Luu drove in the inning's second run with a sac fly to make it 4-1.

Lewis relieved Hoffman in the bottom of the sixth but ran into trouble as she surrendered a two-run home run to Payton Marunich that again cut SU's lead to one (4-3). Lewis retired the side in order in the seventh, though, to pick up a save.

The Crusaders return to action on Saturday, April 20 with a doubleheader at Drew with game one slated to start at 1 p.m.