PURCHASE, N.Y. – The #22 Manhattanville College softball team scored once in the eighth inning and then walked off with a victory in the ninth to salvage a split with New York University in non-conference play on Sunday afternoon at Manhattanville Field. The Valiants took the second game, 6-5 (9 inn.), after having their 13-game winning streak snapped with a 9-4 loss in game one.
Freshman
Aarin Hartenstein (Massapequa, N.Y./Plainedge) came up big at the plate and in the circle for Manhattanville (32-2), going 5-for-7 with two homers, four runs batted in and two runs scored on the day while also tossing 3.2 innings without allowing an earned run to pick up the win in game two.
GAME ONE
The first game of the day was a see-saw battle between the two teams, but NYU scored the final six runs of the game to account for the final lead change in the Violets' 9-4 win.
Hartenstein went a perfect 3 for 3 with a two-run homer in game one and classmate
Desiree Buboi (Villa Park, Calif./Orange Lutheran) also added her team-leading 11th home run of the season, but the Valiants did little else against NYU pitcher Diana King.
After NYU got on the board first with a run in the opening frame, Hartenstein laced a two-run homer to left in the second inning to put the home team ahead. The teams then traded runs in the third as well, with a pair of Violet runs immediately matched by a Buboi two-run homer. However, NYU answered back in the fourth with a two-run shot of its own off the bat of Kahala Bonsignore to take back the lead, and Manhattanville managed just one hit off King (5-2) the rest of the way.
Sophomore
Alycia Feeney (Brewster, N.Y./Brewster) suffered the loss for Manhattanville, allowing five runs (four earned) on seven hits in five innings.
GAME TWO
Manhattanville jumped out to an early lead in game two, but needed a run in the eighth inning to keep the game alive and then won it in the ninth to salvage the split with a 6-5 victory.
The Valiants struck first with a run in the third inning, as junior
Alicia Marino (Mahopac, N.Y./Pleasantville) followed a Buboi double with an RBI single. Two more runs crossed the plate in the fourth, with junior pinch-hitter
Adrena Daw (Crompond, N.Y./Walter Panas) producing a sacrifice fly and freshman
Sophia Chapelone (Carlsbad, Calif./La Costa Canyon) following with an RBI double.
Hartenstein then made it a four-run lead with a solo homer in the fourth inning to seemingly put the Valiants in good position, but NYU struck for four runs in the top of the sixth to tie the game. But the damage would have been worse if not for Hartenstein, who came on in relief of freshman
Julianna Orrico (Bronx, N.Y./Preston) with runners on the corners and got a foul out after a huge caught stealing at the plate kept the game tied.
The game went to the international tiebreaker in the eighth inning, where Hartenstein ceded her only run after a sacrifice bunt and an RBI ground out. But she made up for it in the bottom half, as her double scored Buboi to tie the game at five.
Hartenstein then kept NYU off the scoreboard in the ninth despite the runner starting the inning at second, setting the stage for an RBI grounder off the bat of junior
Shelbee Damianos (Ojai, Calif./Nordhoff) that gave the Valiants a victory.
Hartenstein (4-0) remained unbeaten on the year with her 3.2 innings of one-hit relief, and also saved Orrico from her first loss after the freshman allowed four runs on eight hits in 5.1 innings.
Manhattanville will close out the regular season with four home games next weekend, beginning with Senior Day against Eastern University on Saturday at 1 p.m.
