Softball Sweeps Doubleheader at Bucknell

Wednesday, March 27

Lewisburg, Pa.

3:00 p.m.

Drexel University

9-18

Bucknell

6-16

Drexel

Bucknell

Photo by: Greg Carroccio

3/27/2013 6:49:00 PM | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

LEWISBURG, Pa. - The Drexel softball team swept a doubleheader at Bucknell on Wednesday afternoon, winning both games by 3-1 scores. Jenn Reading drove in two runs in each contest as the Dragons won their ninth and tenth games of the season and swept the Bison in a doubleheader for the second straight season.

Tara Konopka scattered five hits in the first game, allowing just one run in the seventh inning and striking out five. Rose Portiolli started Game Two and got her first collegiate win, working four innings and allowing one run while striking out four. Shelby Taylor came in to get the save in the second game, pitching three innings and also striking out four while keeping the Bison hitless.

Drexel got all the runs it would need in the first game in the third inning, scoring three unearned runs to take a 3-0 lead. Lara Horwitz led off the inning and hit a grounder to shortstop that was misplayed, allowing her to reach. After Comfort Ahonkhai bunted her over to second, Hanna Parrish singled to put runners on the corners. A sharply hit ball to third off the bat of Maggy Fermo was handled, forcing Horwitz to hold at third. Ahonkhai had too big a jump to be nabbed at second, but Fermo was out at first with the second out of the inning.

The Bison should have been able to get out of the third without any damage, but a roller to second off the bat of Maddison Timoteo was bobbled, and everyone was safe as Horwitz crossed with the first run. Up stepped Reading, who smashed a drive to the gap in left-center field that went to the wall, scoring Ahonkhai and Timoteo as Reading pulled into second with a double.

The three unearned runs would prove to be all Konopka needed, as the freshman allowed a single in each of the first four innings, but nothing more. She walked just one, in the sixth inning, before a leadoff triple by Cyndee Sanders would come around to score for the Bison in the seventh inning. That lone run would be all Bucknell could muster, however, as Drexel snapped a four-game losing skid.

By the end of the second game, the Dragons had turned that around into a brief two-game winning streak. Bucknell actually scored first, getting a run in the second inning off Portiolli, but the freshman hurler kept the Bison at bay otherwise during her four innings of work.

Drexel took the lead in the third. With one out, Parrish beat out an infield single. After Fermo roped a single back up the middle, Timoteo reached on a fielder's choice that eliminated Parrish at third base. Again it was Reading that got the job done with two outs, slicing a double to the right-center field gap this time, playing Fermo and Timoteo.

The Dragons added an insurance run in the sixth. Taylor, who started the game as a designated player before moving into the circle, lined a single to left to lead off the inning. After a pop up, Horwitz bunted Taylor to second. Pinch hitter Jess O'Hara came up next, and came through in the clutch with a drive down the left field line that brought Taylor around to score and allowed O'Hara to move into second with a double.

Drexel will get back to action on Friday afternoon when it plays its first conference road games of the year, a doubleheader at James Madison. They will conclude their three-game series in Harrisonburg with a single game on Saturday.