4/16/24
 
NEW ROCHELLE, NY – Morgan McVicar hit two homeruns to help Lackawanna College softball guarantee a doubleheader split on the road against Monroe College on Tuesday afternoon in non-region action in New York. The Falcons won game one, 14-3, in five innings, before dropping game two, 9-0, also in five innings.
 
The Falcons (25-12) were dominant throughout game one, piling on runs early and often to overwhelm the Mustangs (15-23) in five innings. McVicar (First Year; Blakely, PA) hit her first homer of the day on a drive to right center that split the outfielders and rolled out of view, giving the Falcons an immediate 3-0 advantage with one out in the top of the first. A single, followed by a double, put runners in scoring position, still with one out, when the Falcons scored a fourth run, thanks to a ground out to second, pushing their early lead to 4-0.
 
Monroe scored two in the bottom frame, courtesy of its own inside-the-parker, but Lackawanna answered right away in the second, using a one-out walk, followed by a single, to put two runners on. Back-to-back wild pitches let a run score, then a wild pitch on a ball four put another run on the board. Later, a bases-loaded walk with two outs forced home a third run, putting the Falcons up 7-2.
 
Lackawanna added four more in the third, scoring on a sac fly, and then a two-out, three-run homer from Allyson Lemerise (Sophomore; Catonsville, MD), pushing the advantage to 11-2.
 
A solo homer led off the bottom of the third for Monroe, but pitcher Aria Reyes (Sophomore; Allentown, PA) pitched around trouble to keep things at 11-3. A pair of errors gifted the Falcons two runs in the top of the fourth, and McVicar led the top of the fifth inning off with a solo homer, inside-the-park, to right center, giving Lackawanna the 14-3 advantage. Reyes got the 1-2-3 bottom frame to end game one early on the run-rule.
 
McVicar finished 4-for-4 with three runs scored and four RBI, while Lemerise was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and three RBI. Reyes had a pair of RBI, while Mazzie Musgrave (First Year; Old Forge, PA) had a pair of hits and two runs scored. Reyes got the win, her seventh of the year, allowing three runs on seven hits in five innings pitched.
 
Game two was a very different affair for Lackawanna, as the Falcons were held to two hits and struck out ten times in five innings against a dominant performance from Sarah Wall of Monroe College.
 
The Mustangs, after shutting out the Falcons in the top frame, were quick to strike in the bottom half. Three straight one-out hits scored a pair of runs, then a pair of wild pitches put another runner in scoring position. A two-out single scored that run, then two more singles resulted in a fourth run, and a double pushed a fifth across for Monroe.
 
The Falcons couldn't take advantage of an error in the top of the second, but the Mustangs scored a run on an error in the bottom half, when the Falcons dropped a fly ball in the field. A sac fly scored a second run, and Monroe held a 7-0 advantage heading into the third.
 
Lackawanna got a two-out double from Madison Maloney (Sophomore; Scranton, PA), and Maloney stood at third after a stolen base, but a ground out couldn't keep the inning alive. Three more Lackawanna errors resulted in another run, and a run-scoring ground out gave the Mustangs a 9-0 advantage.
 
Lackawanna kept Monroe off the board in the fourth inning, and had a runner at second with one out in the fifth, but back-to-back strikeouts ended the game early via run-rule.
 
Maloney was 1-for-3, and Jillian Heimberger (First Year; Unionville, PA) was the other Falcon with a hit, going 1-for-2. Heimberger pitched three innings, giving up nine runs, five earned, on eleven hits, being saddled with the loss on the day.
 
Lackawanna College softball has the next day off before it gets back to Region XIX DII play on Thursday, April 18^th. The Falcons are set to host the County College of Morris in a doubleheader, with the first pitch of game one at 3:00pm ET at Scranton HS softball field.