HUNTINGTON, West Virginia — On the second day of the Marshall Round Robin on Saturday (March 5), the University of Maryland Eastern Shore softball team grabbed their second win of the season by shutting out the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons 9-0. They also dropped a game to the Marshall Thundering Herd earlier in the day.
In the game versus Marshall, the Hawks saw the Thundering Herd score nine runs in the bottom of the first inning to get themselves off to a blazing start. They added to that by scoring two runs in the third and three runs in the fourth.
Eastern Shore would score their lone run in that game in the fifth inning. Junior Tyanna Roberts would score the run on a sacrifice fly to center field off the bat of graduate student Kaylyn Sterling.
After falling to Marshall for the second straight day, The Shore came back against Purdue Fort Wayne and grabbed their first shout out win since 2019. They got off to a great start in the game by getting a run in the top of the first via a sacrifice fly by sophomore Julia Garcia that brought sophomore Tatum Kresley in to score.
The game stood at 1-0 for the next three innings as graduate student Nasya Goodman was pitching beautifully inside the circle. She would get additional offensive help in the top of the fifth inning.
Maryland Eastern Shore had runners on second and third with two outs in the inning before the rally started. Roberts dealt the first blow as she singled to left field to score Kresley and Sterling. Sophomore Ryan Merriwether came up after that and singled to center score Roberts to make the score 4-0.
Sophomore Kelsie Ekstrom then doubled to left center to bring Merriwether across home plate. Freshman McKenzie Abiley then singled to right field to score Ekstrom. Ekstrom's run was the fifth of the inning, with all the runs coming with two outs, and it put the team up 6-0.
One inning later, the bats continued to be hot for Eastern Shore as Garcia doubled down the left field line to score Kresley and sophomore Ah-Nayia Oglesby to make the score 8-0. Three batters later, Merriwether singled to score Garcia to put an extra insurance run on the board.
Goodman then came out and tossed a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the sixth to finish the game and complete her second complete game of the season. She currently sits fifth in the MEAC in ERA this season at 2.26.
At the plate, Kresley went 3-4 with three runs scored as she has had two or more hits in half the team's games this season. Also, Merriwether, Ekstrom and Abiley all had two hits as well against Purdue Fort Wayne.
"Everything clicked at the right time in the second game," head coach Karla Powell said. "We were productive with our at-bats, dominant on the mound and flawless with our fielding. We played Hawk softball today."
The Shore will play their last game of the Marshall Round Robin tomorrow at 10 a.m. against the Winthrop University Eagles.
