Late Inning Rally Not Enough For Orange In Game 1 vs. Pitt

Story and Photo by Michael Castellano

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The calendar may say Spring, but the long winter just won't seem to end for the Syracuse softball team.

Playing just its third home game more than a week into the month of April the Orange dropped game one of an ACC doubleheader with Pittsburgh 8-6 on what seemed like a cold December afternoon at Skytop Softball Stadium.

Syracuse(15-20, 1-8) struggled at the plate notching just one hit thru the first four innings while Pittsburgh(27-14, 7-9) scored three runs in the opening frame and never looked back handing the Orange its eighth conference loss.

Orange ace Jocelyn Cater started the game for Syracuse and never quite found her groove allowing three runs on five hits thru the first four innings.

"They were pretty disciplined at the plate," Syracuse head coach Leigh Ross said. "So the only thing for Jocelyn to do was to throw it over the zone."

She did settle down in the middle innings getting out of jams in the third and fourth innings and stranding three Panthers runners during that stretch.

The Orange got on the board in the bottom of the third when Danielle Chitkowski blooped a single into center field to score Corinne Ozanne who had walked to start the inning and advanced to second on a Sydney O'Hara hit by pitch.

Pitt opened things up in the top of the fifth. McKayla Taylor blasted a 2-run homer over the trees in center field to extend the Panthers lead to 5-1. It was her ninth of the season. Jordan Fannin followed that with a double. She advanced to third on a throwing error by second baseman Sammy Fernandez and then scored after the ball rolled past Chitkowski and into the SU dugout. Kathryn Duran capped the inning with a wind aided solo shot to right.

But the Orange staged a comeback.

In the bottom of the inning after Ozanne and O'Hara both reached base on free passes and Jocelyn Cater loaded up the bases with a single to right Rachel Burkhardt bought in a run with a sac fly to center. With runners still on first and second Mary Dombrowski lifted a 3-run shot to dead center to cut the Pitt lead down to 7-5.

Even with her pitch count well over 100 Ross opted to leave Cater in the game and she got out of another jam in the sixth stranding a runner on second.

"I told her to just do what she usually does and keep us in the game," Ross said. "And we knew we would have to answer back on offense."

Syracuse cut into the lead again in the bottom of the sixth when Alyssa Dewes singled in Maddi Doane to cut the lead down to just one.

It looked as if Cater was going to keep the Pitt lead at 7-6 headed into the Orange half of the seventh. After McKayla Taylor reached on an error Cater struck out the next two Pitt hitters on six straight pitches, but on a 3-2 count Kathyrn Duran singled down the left field line to give the Panthers all the insurance they would need for their seventh ACC win.

Freshman Maddi Doane extended her team-leading hitting streak to nine games. She was 2-4 with a double for the Orange.

Mary Dombrowski launched her second home run of the season in the loss. She finished 2-3 in game 1 of the doubleheader with three RBI's.

These two teams will return to the field for game three of the series tomorrow. First pitch is set for 12:00.