PURCHASE, N.Y. – In yet another dominant display on the diamond on Wednesday afternoon, the Manhattanville College softball team completed a doubleheader sweep of Hunter College. The Valiants extended their win streak up to 22 straight games with the pair of wins, improving to 26-4 overall with the non-conference finale.
The win streak is the fifth longest active win streak in all of NCAA softball, across all three divisions. Only Oklahoma (DI, 34 straight wins), UT Tyler (DII, 25), Rochester (DIII, 24) and Boston University (DI, 23) have claim to more consecutive wins than the Valiants do currently.
Game One Recap: Manhattanville 8, Hunter 0 (Five Innings)
Manhattanville recorded their fifth-straight win via run rule in the opener, taking Game One in an abbreviated five innings as
Charli Shinstine (Encinitas, Calif./San Dieguito Academy) flirted with perfection.
The starter had not allowed a baserunner through 4.1 innings in what was arguably her strongest performance of the year in a season full of strong performances. With just two outs away from the eighth perfect game in program history, Olivia Palumbo finally solved the Valiant ace with a double to right center. Shinstine responded in the only way she knows how, with two more strikeouts to slam the door shut on her 15
th win of the year. The senior struck out 10 in the win with her ERA dropping to 0.72 on the season.
The Valiants hung four runs on the board in both the second and third innings to get Shinstine all the help she needed.
Samantha Walsh (Spring City, Pa./Owen J Roberts) led off the second with a double, scoring three batters later on a double steal involving
Juliana Parkes (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada/Belmont Secondary) stealing second. The Valiants then hit back-to-back RBI doubles off the bats of
Samantha Reyer (Oceanside, N.Y./Oceanside) and
Olivia Fasce (Yorktown Heights, N.Y./Yorktown). A dropped third strike allowed the final run of the inning to score as Madison Gonzalez drew the throw to first, allowing Fasce to score to put the Valiants up 4-0.
An inning later, the Valiants scored four more on five hits and a Hunter error. After Walsh and
Sydni Brooks (Anaheim, Calif./Cypress) each reach with one-out singles, Parkes put a ball on the ground that was unable to be fielded by the Hawks' first baseman. The error allowed both runners to score as Parkes advanced to second. She came home on a Reyer RBI single, while Gonzalez recorded her own run-scoring base knock three batters later to move the score to 8-0.
Walsh finished 3-for-3 in the opener with a pair of runs scored.
Game Two Recap: Manhattanville 12, Hunter 0 (Five Innings)
The win streak within a win streak continued through Game Two as the Valiants recorded their sixth straight run rule victory, recording 14 hits en route to the win.
While the bats were cooking,
Emily Mottoshiski (Craryville, N.Y./Taconic Hills) had her own brush with perfection. A lone single in the first inning was the only hit that the Hawks would manage against the sophomore hurler. Hunter would add another baserunner in the third on a wild pitch third strike that allowed the batter to reach, but that was all that the Hawks would muster against Mottoshiski. She recorded eight punchouts, making it back-to-back games with her season high in strikeouts, while dropping her ERA down to 3.38.
At the plate, the Valiants did all their damage across the first three innings. A Fasce sacrifice bunt scored
Jayleen Torres (Bellflower, Calif./Downey) with the lone run of the first inning before the team erupted for six runs on seven hits an inning later. Reyer delivered a two-run double to right to plate Parkes and Brooks with the first runs of the frame. With two away, Fasce singled up the middle to score Reyer ahead of a
Sarah Harker (Irvine, Calif./Irvine) RBI double before
Amaya Esparza (Descanso, Calif./Granite Hills) delivered the big blow with a two run homer to put the Valiants up 7-0.
The Valiants added five more the following inning. Torres notched her first RBI of the day on a single through the left side of the infield to plate
Isabella Tansey (San Diego, Calif./University City). Harker then hit a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded to plate Lopez before Esparza delivered again, this time with a three run blast to firmly blow the game open at 12-0. The pair of homers brings Esparza's total on the season to a conference-best seven.
Up Next
The Valiants hit the road on Saturday for a Skyline doubleheader against Old Westbury beginning at noon.
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