(Posted March 19, 2005)

Messiah 14, Juniata 0
Messiah 10, Juniata 3

Huntingdon, Pa. ? After getting the 2005 season off to a strong start, the Juniata College softball team had its conference season get off on the wrong foot as the Eagles dropped a pair of games to Messiah College Saturday afternoon in Huntingdon. Juniata dropped game one 14-0 and then fell by an 11-3 score in game two. The Eagles are now 5-6 overall and 0-2 in Commonwealth Conference play. Messiah improved to 3-7 overall and 2-0 in the conference.

After being unable to punch through offensively in game one, Juniata pushed across its first run of the day in the fourth inning of game two to cut the Messiah lead to 4-1. Leann Leymeister (Blue Mountain/Orwigsburg) doubled and then came home when Danielle Buzin (Central Bucks East/Jamison) reached on an error.

Messiah responded with a pair of runs in the top of the fifth, to extend the lead to 6-1. But the Eagles fought back, cutting into the lead again with a pair of runs in the bottom of the inning. Allison D?Ambrosia (State College/Boalsburg) doubled home Renae Hobbs (Mount Union/Mount Union). Kim Stoia (Morris Hills/Rockaway, N.J.) then came in on a sacrifice fly from Abby Sener (Donegal/Marietta) to pull within three.

Juniata would get no closer than that as Messiah added on to its lead with four runs in the top of the seventh inning. The Eagles were unable to answer in the bottom half of the inning as Messiah took the 10-3 win.

Stoia led the Eagle offense with two hits and a run scored in the game. Hobbs also finished with a pair of hits in the game for Juniata.

Jessica Darrow (Wellsboror/Wellsboro) was tagged with the loss for the Blue and Gold.

In the first game of the day, the Eagles were unable to get their offense going, and were unable to overcome a late surge by the visitors.

Juniata put one runner on base in each of the game?s seven innings but could not string enough hits together to break through against Messiah pitcher Vikki Doures.

Meanwhile, Messiah jumped in front with one run in the second and three more runs in the top of the third. Juniata?s starting hurler Hobbs managed to keep the game within reach through the sixth, when the visitors scored one more run to make it 5-0.

The game then got out of hand in the seventh when the Falcons sent 15 batters to the plate and scored nine runs to extend the lead to 14-0.

Along with her pitching Hobbs led the Juniata offense with two hits in the game.

Juniata will return to action on Monday when the Eagles host Pitt-Bradford for a non-conference doubleheader.

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Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.