The St. John’s softball team finally arrived home last week after playing 19 games on the road to start the season, but their stay was short-lived.
With surprisingly warm temperatures in the air, the Red Storm needed
just five innings to blow out Fairfield
in an 8-0 victory last Wednesday, a
game that was played in just over
one hour.
The Red Storm’s offense pounded ten hits in the winning effort.
Junior catcher Kacee Cox went 2-for-3 with three RBI while freshman shortstop Chrissy Montez went 1-for-3 with a three-run home run. Stacia Dopudja also added an RBI in a 1-for-2 performance.
“We came through with no outs, with one out, with two outs,”Kvilhaug said. “So there was a lot of clutch hitting that was going on. It was nice to see that people were staying within themselves and doing
their jobs.”
The win moved the Red Storm to a 10-10 record in the 2010 campaign.
“I was extremely pleased with our overall team effort,” said head coach Amy Kvilhaug. “Obviously, our
offense was great. We stayed within our individual plans and then
the team’s plans.”
But it wasn’t just the Red Storm
offense that came through against
Fairfield. The Red Storm received strong pitching from junior Kat
Lawrence, who improved her record
to 6-2 on the season with the
complete-game shutout victory.
“I was very happy with Kat’s
performance today,” Kvilhaug said. “She spun the ball well.”
Lawrence surrendered just two hits and struck out five over five innings
of work. Though she has a 6-2 record on the season, Lawrence has struggled at times, this season, entering the game
with an ERA of over 5.00. Her
performance, however, lowered that
number to 4.79.
“It was a very good moral
pickup,” she said. “I’ve struggled a bit
this season, which I’m not used to. I
stayed within myself, and I had
great defense behind me.”
After Lawrence kept Fairfield off
the board in the first, the Red Storm wasted no time getting their offense
rolling, as they scored three runs in
the bottom half of the inning. Cox
lined an RBI double to right center
field to score the first run of the day.
Later in the inning, Fairfield pitcher
Sarah Minice threw an illegal pitch-a
pitch thrown with the pitcher’s foot
off the rubber-with the bases loaded,
which brought home Cox, before
Dopudja lined an RBI single to make
it 3-0.
With St. John’s leading 4-0 in the
bottom of the fourth, Cox laced
a two-out RBI single to right field. Then, with runners on second and third,
Montez would hit her second career
home run, a three-run home run to straightaway center field to put the
Red Storm up 8-0.
After the two-out rally in the fourth, Lawrence would respond by
retiring the Fairfield lineup in order, as
she got Fairfield hitter Dani Griswold
to ground out to third, which sent
everyone home early, and sealed the
shutout victory for St. John’s.
The Red Storm take on Hofstra today at 3 p.m.