Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 CLERMONT, Fla. - The Manhattanville softball team concluded its run at the 2012 NTC Spring Games with a pair of tough losses to Wisconsin-Stout and NFCA #20 Ithaca on Wednesday at Hancock Park. The Valiants fell to the Blue Devils, 4-3, and the nationally ranked Bombers, 5-2.

Manhattanville started the day with a close contest against Wisconsin-Stout, but the Blue Devils scored once in the bottom of the sixth inning to squeak out a 4-3 victory over the Valiants.

The Valiants got on the board first in the top of the first inning, as freshman Laura Montalto (Bronx, N.Y./Preston) and junior Katie Pitcher (Cold Spring, N.Y./Valley Central) recorded back-to-back singles and Montalto eventually came around to score on an error. The score remained the same until the bottom of the third, when UW-Stout scored three times against Pitcher and junior Alyssa Taylor (Craik, Sask./Craik) to take a 3-1 lead.

Manhattanville came right back with two of their own in the top of the fourth, as a Taylor double and a single by junior Jessica Van Galen (Bedford Hills, N.Y./Fox Lane) preceded a two-run double off the bat of senior Ashley Dell (Huntington Station, N.Y./Huntington) that evened the score at three-all. But Stout scratched a run across in their bottom of the sixth inning to regain the lead, and the Valiants could not reply in their final at-bat to suffer the loss.

Pitcher got the start for Manhattanville and received a no-decision, allowing the first two batters of the third inning to reach base before Taylor came on in relief. Taylor (0-3) pitched the final four innings, allowing two runs and striking out three.

Dell went 1 for 3 at the plate with those two runs batted in, while Van Galen had a team-best two hits and scored a run.

In the second game of the day, Manhattanville came up short against nationally ranked Ithaca, falling by the score of 5-2.

Ithaca scored once in the bottom of the fourth inning to take a 1-0 lead, and then added four more in the bottom of the fifth to take it a five-run advantage. Manhattanville attempted a comeback, scoring twice in the top of the seventh on an RBI single from freshman Cori-Bianca Embler (Beacon, N.Y./Beacon) and an RBI groundout by junior Amanda Locke (Brasher Falls, N.Y./St. Lawrence Central), but could get no closer.

Freshman Kristen Rodopoulos (Scarsdale, N.Y./The Ursuline School) suffered the loss for the Valiants, allowing all five runs in 4.1 innings to fall to 1-1 on the year.

Manhattanville (2-5) will return north tomorrow in preparation for the team's next contest, a non-conference doubleheader against NFCA #17 Coast Guard on Sunday beginning at 1 p.m. in New London, Conn.