The St. John Fisher College softball team showed signs of not having played a game in three weeks in its conference opener as the visiting Cardinals fell in five innings in back-to-back games to the Stevens Ducks. The host Ducks took game one 11-1 and followed it up with a 11-0 win in game two.
Kayla Berardi made it difficult for the Cardinals all day at the plate pitching two complete games giving up just one run on three hits while retiring nine batters.
Fisher falls to 8-4 on the year and 0-2 in Empire 8 play while Stevens moves to 12-4, 2-0 respectively.
Game 1: Stevens 11, Fisher 1 (5 Innings)
The Ducks came out of the gates firing scoring nine runs in the first inning to seize command of the game. Halie Schoff was replaced by Megan Keib with the bases loaded after giving up three runs. Keib pitched the final 3.1 innings to finish out the game.
Host Stevens added two more in the second to round out its scoring for the game.
The Cardinals managed just two hits in the contest on a single from Jessie Smyrski in the second inning and a solo home run in the fifth from Genevieve Paeglow for Fisher's lone run in the game.
Schoff was credited with her first loss of the season to drop to 4-1.
Game 2: Stevens 11, Fisher (5 Innings)
In game two Fisher continued to struggle at the plate with just one hit by Lauren Owens in the first inning.
Stevens continued to keep its hot bats going scoring three runs in the first. After a scoreless second inning Stevens doubled its score to 6-0 with four hits in the bottom half.
Keib came in to replace Lauren Wesolowski the fourth inning with the score 7-0 and runners at first and third to try and get the Cardinals out of the jam. The Ducks however pushed four more runners around in the inning to increase their lead to 11-0.
Wesolowski picked up the loss to move to 3-2 on the season.
Fisher's game scheduled for Sunday, March 29th at Elmira has been postponed with the reschedule date to be determined. The Cardinals are slated to play doubleheader starting at 3 pm. on Monday at the University of Rochester.