PURCHASE, N.Y. – Despite excellent pitching from senior Alycia Feeney (Brewster, N.Y./Brewster) and junior Aarin Hartenstein (Massapequa, N.Y./Plainedge), the Manhattanville College softball team had to settle for a split of its MAC Freedom doubleheader with King's (Pa.) College on Sunday afternoon, winning game one, 5-0, before dropping game two, 3-2, at Manhattanville Field.
 
Feeney and Hartenstein did not allow an earned run in 14 innings on the day and combined for 12 strikeouts and only 10 hits allowed. Graduate student Dolores Diemicke (North Massapequa, N.Y./Plainedge) and freshman Ali Orduna (Orange, Calif./Villa Park) both had a team-best three hits at the plate for the Valiants.
 
Game 1: Manhattanville 5, King's (Pa.) 0
 
Feeney tossed a three-hit shutout and eight different Valiants recorded the team's nine hits in a 5-0 game-one win.  The senior struck out six and allowed only two runners to reach third base in recording her 22nd career shutout, one back of Maggie Thomas '07 for the school record.
 
Diemicke was the lone Valiant with multiple hits, going 2-for-3 with a run batted in. Juniors Evonne Torres (Hacienda Heights, Calif./Pioneer) and Desiree Buboi (Villa Park, Calif./Orange Lutheran) hit homers for the Valiants, with Buboi scoring a team-high two runs.
 
Torres opened the scoring by wrapping a homer around the left-field foul pole on the first pitch of the second inning. The Valiants used a two-out rally to score a pair in the third inning, with Diemicke singling home senior Alexis Ventarola (Eastchester, N.Y./Eastchester) and Buboi coming home on an infield single from sophomore Sam Jedrey (La Canada Flintridge, Calif./La Canada).
 
The Valiants added single runs in the fifth and sixth innings on a Buboi solo homer and a Ventarola sacrifice fly to complete the scoring.
 
Game 2: King's (Pa.) 3, Manhattanville 2
 
Manhattanville received another excellent pitching performance from Hartenstein in game two, but mistakes in the final two innings allowed King's to plate three unearned runs and steal a 3-2 victory.
 
Manhattanville kept the offense going to start game two, scoring twice in the first inning. Ventarola put the Valiants ahead just two batters into the opening inning, launching a ball through the wind to the opposite field for her first homer of the year. Torres added a sacrifice fly to deep right-center that scored Buboi later in the frame.
 
After allowing three hits in the first two innings, Hartenstein settled into a groove in the middle innings, retiring the side in order in the third, fourth and fifth frames. King's got one unearned run in the top of the sixth and had the tying run on third base with one out, but Hartenstein snagged a grounder for the second out and then induced another groundout to escape further damage.
 
Feeney came on in relief for the seventh inning, quickly getting a strikeout and groundout before a single just out of the reach of Buboi kept the game alive. Amber Saylor followed with another bloop to right field that caromed away from Ventarola, allowing the tying run to come all the way around, and Saylor then scored on a wild pitch to put the Lady Monarchs ahead.
 
Manhattanville loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh, but a groundout to Kristina Kocher ended the threat and the game. Kocher shut down the Valiants after giving up two runs in the first, allowing three hits over the final six frames. Hartenstein pitched well enough to earn the win, allowing one unearned run on five hits in six innings, while Feeney suffered the tough-luck loss by allowing a pair of unearned runs on two hits.
 
Manhattanville is back in action on Saturday, when the Valiants host Wilkes University in another key MAC Freedom doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m.