CLERMONT, Fla. – The Skidmore College softball team opened its season with a pair of losses at THE Spring Games in Florida. The Thoroughbreds dropped the opener to Haverford, 9-4, before a 7-3 defeat to North Central College in game two. Both games were one-run affairs after five innings.
 
Game 1 – Haverford 9, Skidmore 4

• Haverford scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to break open a one-run game.
• The Thoroughbreds scored in the top of the sixth inning, an unearned run, to pull to within a run at 5-4.
• The Fords scored four unearned markers on four hits and a pair of Skidmore errors in the sixth for the 9-4 final.
• Mallory Allen went the distance for the Thoroughbreds. She allowed just two earned runs on nine hits with just one walk and a pair of strikeouts.
• Elle Harrison was 2-for-4 with a stolen base, a run, and one driven in.
• The only run over the first three innings was a lone Haverford tally in the first after back-to-back errors.
• The first nine Thoroughbreds went down in order before leadoff hitter Sam Waters led off the fourth with a single. After stealing second, she scored on a Harrison opposite-field double.
• Lauren Martin ripped a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the fourth for the Fords to give them a 3-1 lead.
• Skidmore tied it right up in the fifth. Nate' Burley doubles and scored on a Natalie Mayne triple to right-center. Mayne scored one batter later on a Sophia Finch single.
• Haverford got them both back in the bottom half on a Abby Litchfield two-run single with two outs.
• Harrison singled to lead off the sixth and scored two batters later from second on an overthrow. Skidmore then had two runners in scoring position with one out, but Haverford reliever K Bodak wiggled out of the jam to preserve the lead.
• Litchfield was 3-for-3 with a walk and three RBI for Haverford. Grace Stowe and Martin both drove in a pair.

 
Game 2 – North Central 7, Skidmore 3

• North Central plated three insurance tallies in the top of the sixth inning to take a 7-3 lead, and held off the Thoroughbreds for the win.
• Waters finished game two 2-for-4 with a run scored and stolen base.
• Cortney Somsky had Skidmore's lone extra-base hit: a one-out double in the fourth.
• The top three hitters in the NCC lineup went a combined 8-for-14.
• The Cardinals scored single runs in each of the first four innings, countered by a Skidmore run in the first, for a 4-1 lead.
• Somsky, who doubled in the fourth, scored on an Erin Gibbons hit-by-pith with the bases loaded. Skidmore settled for one as reliever Juliana Maude struck out the pinch hitter to end the frame.
• Skidmore turned a double play in the top of the fifth before closing the gap to just a run in the bottom half when a pair of Cardinal errors helped score Nate' Burley, who hit an infield single earlier.
• Shayne Cleeve held North Central scoreless with 1.1 innings of shutout relief.

 
UP NEXT
The Thoroughbreds will play against Juniata College and Lasell University Monday morning beginning at 9 a.m.