GREENVILLE, South Carolina — In their first action in nearly two years, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore softball team fell in their first two games of the season on day one of the Paladin Invitational hosted by the University of Furman. The Shore dropped their first game to Tarleton State 13-1 and their second game to Furman 13-10.
In the first game of the day, Tarleton State jumped out quickly on the Hawks as they scored eight runs in the first and five runs in the second inning. The quick start forced Eastern Shore to make a pitching change as graduate student Nasya Goodman came in to begin the third inning. She pitched three innings and allowed just two hits and struck out two batters.
The squad's lone run came in the bottom of the fifth inning. Sophomore Ryan Merriwether led the inning by reaching base on an error. She eventually advanced to third base on a passed ball and sophomore Kelsie Ekstrom singled to left field to bring her home.
Freshman Nola Mountain went 2-3 at the plate in her Hawks debut. The other hits in the game came from freshman McKenzie Abiley and sophomore Tatum Kresley.
In the second game of the day, the Hawks jumped out to a big lead on the Paladins. Mountain hit an RBI single to score Kresley in the first inning. Two batters later, sophomore Ah-Nayia Oglesby crushed a ball over the left field fence to score herself and Mountain to give the Hawks a 3-0 lead.
The third inning saw Eastern Shore score again. Sophomore Ameenah Ballenger got on base via a bunt and that moved her classmate Julia Garcia to third base. Ballenger then stole second and Furman committed an error on the throw which allowed Garcia to score and make the score 4-0.
One inning later, the Hawks offense exploded. Kresley tripled to center field to score Abiley, Ekstrom and freshman Rebecca Miller. Kresley scored two batters later after Furman committed an error off the bat of Garcia.
Following a double steal by Garcia and Mountain, Ballenger singled up the middle to bring them across home plate. Eastern Shore held a 10-0 lead as the game headed into the middle of the fourth inning.
The contest took a turn after that as the Paladins would get three runs in the bottom of that inning before scoring 10 runs in the fifth inning to take a 13-10 lead.
The Shore would threaten in both the sixth and seventh innings, but they could not overcome the turn that the contest took in the fourth and fifth innings.
Maryland Eastern Shore had five players get two or more hits in the contest against Furman. Kresley was the leading hitter as she went 3-5 with three RBIs.
The Hawks will be back in action tomorrow (February 12) on day two of the Paladin Invitational. They play North Dakota at 2 p.m. and Tarleton State once again at 4:30 p.m.
